Why Rohit Sharma Is Not Playing For Mumbai Indians vs Punjab Kings In IPL 2026, Hardik Pandya Reveals Reason

Rohit Sharma is missing the Mumbai Indians vs Punjab Kings IPL 2026 match at the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday. The former MI captain had to retire hurt with a hamstring issue during Mumbai Indians' previous match against Royal Challenegers Bengaluru. The same injury has kept him out of the PBKS clash. In fact, Rohit might be in for a longer absence as MI captain panted a grim picture. "Rohit misses out, he'll take a couple of games to see where he is," said MI skipper Hardik Pandya.

Mitchell Santner also missed out through illness. Quinton de Kock returned to the side, and Mayank Rawat made his debut for the home team. Punjab Kings skipper Shreyas Iyer won the toss and opted to bowl against Mumbai Indians in a Indian Premier League (IPL) match on Thursday.

"We would have loved to bowl first as well, but yeah, good toss to lose. (But time to make a move?) Yes, time to play some good cricket, time to get that W win. So, yes, I think we played decent cricket. It's just that in a couple of overs, we have not been able to capitalize and we have been, kind of losing those big moments. And we're just gonna speak about that and just make sure that in this game, we come out there and make sure that those little battles, we keep winning it. Yes, I think last game, we went for four 20+ overs. I think any point of time in T20 cricket, that's not acceptable. So, as a group, we are aware, as a group, we are aware that what it requires us to kind of contain that, those overs and not let them slide away and have them big overs. And yeah, we have spoken about it. We have kind of planned about it. Let's see how it goes today," Pandya said at the toss.

PBKS have retained the same playing XI as in the previous game.

Punjab Kings remain unbeaten this season with three wins and one no-result due to rain, while Mumbai Indians, after an opening victory, lost their next three matches and are in deep trouble.

Punjab Kings (Playing XI): Prabhsimran Singh(w), Priyansh Arya, Shreyas Iyer(c), Cooper Connolly, Shashank Singh, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Xavier Bartlett, Vijaykumar Vyshak, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal

Mumbai Indians (Playing XI): Quinton de Kock(w), Ryan Rickelton, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya(c), Sherfane Rutherford, Naman Dhir, Mayank Rawat, Shardul Thakur, Deepak Chahar, Jasprit Bumrah

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Rohit Sharma Mumbai Indians Punjab Kings IPL 2026 Cricket