On September 6(Sunday), the Indian Premier League (IPL) governing council announced the full itinerary for the 13th edition of the IPL. The tournament opener will a repeat of last year’s final where four-time winners Mumbai Indians will face Chennai Super Kings on September 19. However, BCCI is yet to release the schedule of the playoffs.
Meanwhile, initially, BCCI had planned to organise the tournament in March. However, due to COVID-19 outbreak, the organisers postponed the tournament. While there was a doubt over the future of IPL 2020, BCCI patiently waited for the picture to get clear. The window finally opened after ICC deferred the T20 World Cup scheduled to take place in Australia.
Mumbai will miss Lasith Malinga
BCCI took a lot of consideration before announcing the schedule. All the members of all franchises will remain in a bio-secure bubble throughout the tournament due to the novel coronavirus. Dubai, Sharjah, and Abu Dhabi will host all the matches of the tournament.
The Rohit Sharma-led franchise is the most successful team in IPL with four titles to their name. They will hope to defend their title in the UAE; however, they don’t have a great record in the UAE when the tournament took place in the middle-east in 2014. They will play the tournament opener on September 19 against Chennai Super Kings. The Rohit Sharma-led side will play their final league game on November 3 against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
They will miss their star campaigner Lasith Malinga owing to personal reasons. Veteran Australian fast bowler James Pattinson will replace the fast bowler in the squad.
Mumbai Indians – Full Schedule in IPL 2020
We begin our 🏆 defence on the opening day of #Dream11IPL 🔥
Which fixture are you looking forward to, Paltan? 💙#OneFamily #MumbaiIndians #MI pic.twitter.com/36U5plUu7A
— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) September 6, 2020
Mumbai Indians Squad
Aditya Tare, Anmolpreet Singh, Anukul Roy, Dhawal Kulkarni, Hardik Pandya, Ishan Kishan, Jasprit Bumrah, Jayant Yadav, Kieron Pollard, Krunal Pandya, Lasith Malinga, Mitchell McCleneghan, Quinton de Kock, Rahul Chahar, Rohit Sharma, Sherfane Rutherford, Suryakumar Yadav, Trent Boult, Chris Lynn, Digvijay Deshmukh, Mohsin Khan, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Prince Balwant Rai Singh, Saurabh Tiwary.