Ahmedabad, March 29: Hardik Pandya is back to lead the Mumbai Indians as the five-time champions won the toss and elected to bowl first against Gujarat Titans in ninth match of IPL 2025 at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Saturday.

Both teams are coming off a defeat in their respective opening games and a win for one of the two sides will get them to open their account in the points table. Hardik had missed MI’s season opener against Chennai Super Kings due to a one-match ban he copped for maintaining a slow over rate last year.

Apart from Hardik, spinner Mujeeb Ur Rahman is also included in the playing eleven, with Robin Minz, Will Jacks and Vignesh Puthur, who took 3-32 against CSK on debut, making way. “The simple reason is we don't know how the pitch will play, plus the dew factor. It's always better to bat second on the black-soil pitch. Only last year we played on black soil, otherwise we have been playing on red soil. Last year, we had the game under wraps but couldn't finish it.”

“The prep has been fantastic, the boys are excited and we back each other, be there for each other. Very happy stage. I come back, and the others we are keeping the options open. Always about playing good cricket, planning right and enjoying the game,” he said.

GT skipper Shubman Gill said he would have looked to bowl first as well and that his playing eleven is unchanged. “Batted first plenty of times here, so nothing changes for us. It is all about assessing the conditions and seeing what target we can set, and if we are chasing it is about how to get to that target.”

“Plenty of positives from the last game, we just got slow in the middle and that post us, but still we managed to score about 200 runs in 14 overs. We have got the same team, might see one change with the impact sub. We want to have a lefty - righty (opening) combination, and Jos has been playing at three for England, so nothing changes for him,” he said.

Playing XIs

Gujarat Titans: Shubman Gill (captain), B Sai Sudharsan, Jos Buttler (wk), Sherfane Rutherford, Rahul Tewatia, Shahrukh Khan, Rashid Khan, R Sai Kishore, Kagiso Rabada, Mohammed Siraj and Prasidh Krishna

Impact Substitutes: Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Ishant Sharma, Anuj Rawat, Mahipal Lomror

Mumbai Indians: Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton (wk), Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya (captain), Tilak Varma, Naman Dhir, Mitchell Santner, Deepak Chahar, Trent Boult, Mujeeb Ur Rahman, and Satyanarayana Raju

Impact Substitutes: Robin Minz, Ashwani Kumar, Raj Bawa, Corbin Bosch, and Will Jacks

--IANS

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