Mumbai Indians (MI) are without the services of Rohit Sharma while Chennai Super Kings (CSK) are playing without MS Dhoni in the second El-Clasico of the IPL 2026 season. Both the star players are out of action due to respective injuries. Rohit suffered a hamstring injury during the league stage game against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) on April 12. He tried to continue batting, but had to walk off due to the pain. Rohit is batting in nets and is practicing before every fixture but he isn’t match fit.
As for Dhoni, he is out of action due to a calf strain. He was initially ruled out of IPL 2026 for only two weeks. CSK head coach Stephen Fleming recently revealed that Dhoni had tweaked his calf again during a practice game, which has delayed his return. Sanju Samson is keeping the wickets in his absence. He joined CSK via trade before IPL 2026.
Mumbai Indians opt to bat
MI captain Hardik Pandya won the toss and they opted to bat first. The visiting team made one change in the playing XI and handed a debut cap to leg-spinner Raghu Sharma.
“We are gonna bat first. Looks like a good track. During the World Cup, we played against Zimbabwe where it played really well. Just the way we batted last game, thought we should give one more opportunity to the batters to kind of score runs as much as possible,” Pandya said.
CSK made two changes in their final XI. CSK surprisingly dropped Akeal Hosein and brought in Prashant Veer. Akeal took a four-fer in the previous game against MI.
“We were looking to bat first. The wicket looks good, little bit on the dryer side, won’t change much. A tough track to bat on, last game. Confidence-wise everyone is right up there. Stick to the process, do the process right and result will come. (Ramakrishna) Ghosh comes in for Gurjapneet Singh and Prashant Veer comes in for Akeal Hosein,” CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad said at the toss.
Here are playing XIs of both teams
Chennai Super Kings: Ruturaj Gaikwad (Captain), Sanju Samson, Urvil Patel, Dewald Brevis, Shivam Dube, Jamie Overton, Ramakrishna Ghosh, Prashant Veer, Noor Ahmad, Anshul Kamboj, Mukesh Choudhary.
Mumbai Indians: Hardik Pandya (Captain), Will Jacks, Ryan Rickelton, Suryakumar Yadav, Naman Dhir, Tilak Varma, Robin Minz, Trent Boult, Krish Bhagat, Jasprit Bumrah, AM Ghazanfar.
