MI playing XI vs DC: No Hardik Pandya, Suryakumar Yadav leads & Santner returns

Hardik Pandya is unwell and therefore will miss the MI vs DC clash while Capitals have made no changes to their playing XI

Delhi Capitals have won the toss and have decided to bowl first in their first IPL 2026 home game at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Saturday. Five-time champions MI will be led by Suryakumar Yadav as captain Hardik Pandya misses out on the game as he is unwell and therefore isn’t fit for the game. DC have gone ahead with an unchanged playing XI while Mumbai Indians have three changes to their playing XI.

DC vs MI playing XIs

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Ryan RIckelton (wk), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Naman Dhir, Sherfane Rutherford, Mitchell Santner, Corbin Bosch, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah
Impact subs: Mayank Markande, Robin Minz, Raj Bawa, Trent Boult, Ashwani Kumar

Delhi Capitals: KL Rahul (wk), Pathum Nissanka, Nitish Rana, Vipraj Nigam, Axar Patel (capt), David Miller, Tristan Stubbs, Kuldeep Yadav, Lungi Ngidi, T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar
Impact subs: Ashutosh Sharma, Auqib Nabi Dar, Sameer Rizvi, Sameer Rizvi, Karun Nair

Speaking at the toss, Suryakumar revealed that Hardik was unwell and therefore wasn’t fit for selection for the game against DC on Saturday. Explaining the changes, SKY said that Deepak Chahar comes in while Corbin Bosch replaces Trent Boult in the line-up. New Zealand T20I captain Mitchell Santner replaces Allah Ghazanfar in MI’s playing XI.

MI have made no changes to their batting order. Rohit Sharma will be hoping to continue his fine form after a scintillating 78-run knock against KKR in the previous game, which also marked his fastest IPL fifty. He will be partnered by Ryan Rickleton at the top of the order. The Proteas batter stitched together a brilliant partnership with the Hitman that saw both batters compliment each other perfectly.

In the absence of Pandya, MI have bolstered their bowling unit by adding the experienced trio of Chahar, Bosch and Santner to their line-up. While Deepak is a top choice bowler who can get the ball to swing in the powerplay, Bosch has ample experience of bowling across the game. Santner, on the other hand, is a valuable all-rounder who can contribute with both bat and ball.

DC on the other hand have gone with an unchanged playing XI, which means Pathum Nissanka will get another chance despite a poor performance on his IPL debut. While their batting was a let down in the previous game, barring Sameer Rizvi, their bowling was top-notch, with Mukesh, Ngidi and Natarajan doing extremely well while Kuldeep lived up to his reputation.