The IPL (Indian Premier League) 2025 kicks off on March 22. The season opener of the competition will see Kolkata Knight Riders taking on Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Furthermore, after the first game, the third game of the season will be highly anticipated as Mumbai Indians lock horns with Chennai Super Kings.
The two joint most successful sides in the tournament’s history go head to head at the MA Chidambaram Stadium on March 23. There are many stars on both sides who can make a significant impact in the game, and one of the players with a huge impact could be star all-rounder Hardik Pandya.
Ahead of the game, veteran New Zealand batter Kane Williamson took centre stage and backed Pandya to be a star performer for MI throughout the season.
“Hardik’s been around for a number of years, and he’s experienced a number of highs and some lows. And I think having all of those experiences under your belt gives you a pretty good stead when perhaps you are under a little bit of pressure or things aren’t going as well as you would like. And that certainly happens for everybody. But his ability to work through that, come out the other side and put up the performances that he’s done, not just the quality of player, but certainly showing leadership as well in really big moments of games, has been great to watch,” Williamson was quoted as saying by Sportskeeda.
Furthermore, he talked about how much he enjoyed playing under Hardik Pandya’s captaincy when they both represented Gujarat Titans a few years ago.
“And it was always a pleasure to play alongside him and be involved with GT under his captaincy. So I’ve got no doubt Mumbai are going to be pretty well-placed in the competition. They’ve got a lot of strong leaders on their side and so many amazing local players,” Williamson said.
© 2009-2025 Independent News Service. All rights reserved.
