The 19th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and all teams are gearing up for their respective opening games of the season. Even the former cricketers and experts are busy analysing every team now as the discussions around team combinations are underway. When it comes to five-time champions Mumbai Indians, Harbhajan Singh reckons the franchise will not be able to play Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton together in the same playing XI.
Notably, Rickelton opened the innings with Rohit Sharma last season and scored 388 runs in 14 innings at a strike rate of 150.97 with three fifties to his credit. It is a decent performance given that it was the maiden IPL season for the 29-year-old cricketer. As for De Kock, he is coming off an underwhelming season for Kolkata Knight Riders, having mustered only 152 in eight matches at a sub-par strike rate of 129.91.
However, when he played for MI before during his three-year stint from 2019 to 2021, the southpaw was brilliant, amassing 529, 503 and 297 runs in respective IPL editions. This show might lead to MI preferring De Kock ahead of Rickelton at least to start with this season. But with both players being openers and the other opener being Rohit, Harbhajan feels only one of the two South Africans will start.
“I don’t think the MI team management will make both Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton start in the playing XI together. Only one of these two guys will feature in the starting line-up and making both of them play will be difficult because MI also have Rohit Sharma at the top.
“He will be the main opener with either Ryan Rickelton or Quinton de Kock giving him company at the other end. Then Suryakumar Yadav and Tilak Varma will come in at three and four. So I don’t think we will see Quinton de Kock and Ryan Rickelton playing together at the same time,” Harbhajan said while speaking on JioHotstar’s Game Plan.
Aakash Chopra predicts De Kock to open with Rohit Sharma
However, Aakash Chopra had a definitive answer to what Mumbai Indians’ opening pair would look like in IPL 2026. According to him, De Kock will definitely play and also reckoned that the five-time IPL winners will have a lot of selection headache around their overseas players.
“MI love their left and right-hand combination as openers. I am sure we will see Rohit Sharma and Quinton de Kock opening the innings. This pair helped them lift the trophy in 2019 and 2020. Then the bigger challenge is fitting Will Jacks in the line-up. Does he fit into the scheme of things? Because there is also Sherfane Rutherford. You want to play Rutherford because he bats lower down the order and gives an extra bowling option. But who says Will Jacks cannot do that job?
“He did it throughout the T20 World Cup for England. So that is a problem of plenty, but a good one to have. The other part is that they need to feature at least two overseas bowlers. Trent Boult will play. Then one between Mitchell Santner and Allah Ghazanfar must play. Plus there is Corbin Bosch as well. It is going to be a tough ask. But this is a problem of riches that most teams desire. MI has it. Now it is up to them to solve this riddle,” Chopra said.
Also Read