Captain, coaching, business interview with Mumbai Indians season overview on next week’s front page

Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya, centre, with head coach Mahela Jayawardene, right, and batting coach Kieron Pollard during a training session ahead of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 T20 cricket match between Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. New Delhi: Mumbai Indians (MI) top brass will gather in England next week to take stock of the previous season and make key decisions for the journey ahead. It is understood that everything from captaincy to coaching to trade talks will be on the table as management, including ownership, assess head coach Mahela Jayawardene’s postseason report.While the dressing room turmoil and trade talks with Hardik Pandya grabbed most of the attention, Jayawardene’s return to the scene has flown under the radar. Under the 49-year-old, the five-time champions finished fourth in 2025 and ninth in 2026. It remains to be seen if he can maintain his position as the franchise aims to hit the reset button in hopes of returning to its glory days.As reported by TimesofIndia.com, there is a lot of interest in the Hardik Pandya trade and it will be clear after the review of MI’s season. The position of the franchise will be key and it will be interesting to see how they position themselves to get the best out of the trade. The trade talks are unlikely to be limited to just the all-rounder as another name of the former Indian captain has also sparked interest among franchises.Bumrah or Tilak?Coaching and trade talks aside, the Mumbai Indians need to find out their captain for 2027. They are known to be a unit that doesn’t believe in stop-gap measures, so the direction they take next week will be very crucial. Will they pick Jasprit Bumrah or invest in youngster Tilak Varma, who is also rising up the Indian leaderboard?Bumrah is a strong contender and has hardly missed a match for the team in the last three seasons. While Tilak is young, his returns with the bat have been far from consistent. Some believe he is still a work in progress as a T20 batsman and the captaincy will only weigh on him.The 32-year-old, who made his debut as the captain of Mumbai Indians in the IPL 2026 match against Punjab Kings in the absence of both regular skipper Hardik Pandya and stand-in skipper Suryakumar Yadav, hinted at his captaincy ambitions.“I didn’t think I would be a Test captain before I became MI captain,” he said at the toss.Bumrah led India in Test cricket, leading the team to victory over Australia in Perth in the first of five Tests during the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. Lest we forget, Bumrah was the franchise’s highest-paid retainer ahead of the November 2024 mega-auction.So is Bumrah the best bet for at least the 2027 season before an overhaul takes place in the next cycle?Certainly, this is not the only difficult task that the decision-makers will discuss when they meet.