Hardik Pandya did not feature for Mumbai Indians in their IPL 2026 match against Lucknow Supergiants at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Monday.Suryakumar Yadav came on in his place, saying Hardik was unwell. Later, Mumbai Indians confirmed that the skipper is dealing with back spasms.Suryakumar has been criticized for his form this season and was seen interacting with LSG captain Rishabh Pant during the match. He said he was replacing Hardik.“He wasn’t in good shape tonight, so I was just in his shoes,” Suryakumar said at the toss.Mumbai Indians have had a slow start to the season and currently sit in ninth place in the table with four points, level with bottom-placed Lucknow Supergiants.Hardik has also struggled with bat and ball this season. He scored 146 runs in eight innings with an average of 20.85 and a strike rate of 136.44.In the absence of captain Hardik Pandya, Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to play Lucknow Supergiants first.In Pandya’s absence, Mumbai Indians brought in Corbin Bose in place of Trent Boult, while Rohit Sharma returned to the lineup after an injury and was named on the impact bench.Lucknow Supergiants also made some changes in the line-up, giving Josh Inglis his debut while Mukul Choudhary made way for Akshat Raghuvansh. teammumbai indians (Played XI): Ryan Rickelton (w), Naman Dhir, Suryakumar Yadav (c), Tilak Varma, Will Jacks, Raj Bawa, Corbin Bosch, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah, AM Ghazanfar, Raghu Sharma.MI Impact Player Options – Rohit Sharma, Mayank Rawat, Robin Mintz, Shardul Thakur and Trent Boult.Lucknow Super Giants (XI played): Mitchell Marsh, Aiden Markram, Rishabh Pant (centre), Josh Inglis, Nicholas Pooran, Akshat Raghuvansh, Himmat Singh, Mohammad Shami, Mohsin Khan, Avish Khan, Prince Yadav.LSG’s impact player options – Manimaran Siddharth, Digvesh Singh, Mayank Yadav, Shahbaz Ahamad and Abdul Samad.
