- Hardik Pandya: Mumbai Indians have retained Hardik Pandya for IPL 2025 for a price of 16.35 crores. Like last season, this time too it has been decided to make him the captain. While Surya, who is leading in this race, has been selected as the captain…
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Hardik Pandya: The auction market of IPL 2025 is going to be set up in a few days. Many big players will be seen trying their luck in this mega auction to be held before the 18th season of IPL . On October 31, all the franchises submitted the list of their retained players to the BCCI. Talking about the retention list of Mumbai Indians (MI) , the franchise expressed confidence in its 5 core players for the upcoming season.
Hardik Pandya , Rohit Sharma , Jasprit Bumrah , Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Verma were retained by MI. The franchise once again expressed confidence in Pandya as captain while Surya was ignored. Let’s find out why this big decision was taken…
The franchise betrayed Surya by making Hardik Pandya the captain again
Mumbai Indians have not yet announced their captain for the 18th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) . Compared to other teams, Mumbai is in the most discussion about its captain. Because there were not one but three names for the claim of the new captain of this team, which also included the name of Rohit Sharma, who made the team champion five times. Apart from Rohit, there was also talk of giving captaincy to Suryakumar Yadav and Jaspreet.
He himself had given hints about this, but in the end it did not happen. Since Hardik Pandya was the captain of the team last season, MI wants to keep him as the captain of their team this time as well. Hardik has been retained by paying more money than Rohit. Also, there is no discussion about a new captain in the Mumbai camp at the moment.
Suryakumar Yadav had given hints of captaincy
There was a lot of controversy for a long time regarding the captaincy of Mumbai Indians for IPL 2025. Along with Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav was also considered a strong contender for the captaincy. When Surya was questioned about the captaincy of MI during the press conference before the start of the T20 series against Bangladesh, he said,
‘It feels good for India too. I had led the team against Australia and South Africa before captaining against Sri Lanka. I have learnt from other captains how to take the team forward. Let’s look ahead, keep going. You will know the rest.’
After this statement, the discussion of making Surya the captain in place of Hardik Pandya had intensified. Because SKY has been the captain of Team India in T20 International since the T20 World Cup 2024. So far, India has won 13 out of 16 matches under his captaincy. But after the retention list came out, the franchise has once again expressed confidence in Hardik as the captain, shattering SKY’s hopes.
Haridk Pandya has captaincy experience
Mumbai Indians appointed Hardik Pandya as the new captain of the team in place of Rohit Sharma in IPL 2024. However, MI’s performance under his leadership was disappointing and the team had to end its journey at the last position in the points table. Last season, under Hardik’s captaincy, Mumbai lost 10 out of 14 matches and won only four matches. By the end of the season, there were differences between Rohit Sharma and Mumbai over captaincy.
But now this controversy has cooled down. Rohit has also returned home. It is believed that Hitman also has no problem with retaining Hardik as the captain. Talking about Hardik, he has a lot of experience in captaincy. Under his captaincy, Gujarat Titans (GT) won the 2022 title.
Apart from this, he has also captained Team India in T20 International . In such a situation, the team owners want to give him another chance and give him time to prove himself. This is the big reason why the franchise must have decided to retain Hardik Pandya as the captain by dropping Surya’s option.
See here the list of MI ‘s retained players
- Jasprit Bumrah: 18 crores
- Suryakumar Yadav: 16.35 crores
- Hardik Pandya: Rs 16.35 crore
- Rohit Sharma: Rs 16.3 crore)
- Tilak Varma: Rs 8 crore)