IPL 2026: Mumbai Indians Dream Squad – Predicted Team, Best 11 and Full Player List

Explore Mumbai Indians Dream Squad for IPL 2026 with predicted team, retained players, auction strategy, and the ideal playing 11 for the upcoming season.

When discussing the most successful franchises in IPL history, two names stand tall – Mumbai Indians (MI) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK). With five IPL titles, the Mumbai Indians have long been the epitome of consistency, resilience, and championship pedigree. All five triumphs came under the iconic leadership of Rohit Sharma, cementing his legacy as one of the greatest captains in T20 cricket. However, since IPL 2020, MI’s journey has taken a different turn.

The last five seasons have been underwhelming, with the team not only missing out on silverware but also failing to reach the finals – a stark contrast to their dominant past. The year 2024 marked a major transition, as Hardik Pandya took over the reins from Rohit Sharma, signalling a new era in MI’s leadership structure. With a fresh captain and evolving squad dynamics, the Mumbai Indians now face the challenge of rebuilding their legacy while adapting to the modern demands of T20 cricket.

2025 is when the team revamped themselves with a major squad rehaul in the Mega Auction, and they were able to develop a solid squad. The focus on core players has been MI’s strength, and their squad-building exercise showed exactly that. While there were a few gaps in the team, what is the likely dream squad, predicted retained and released players, and target players for the Mumbai Indians (MI) for IPL 2026? Well, let’s find out in this article.

Mumbai Indians Core for IPL 2026

Let’s first start with the core of the Mumbai Indians team, and which players are most critical for the team’s success. From a batting perspective, Rohit Sharma, Ryan Rickelton, Will Jacks, Naman Dhir, Tilak Varma, and Suryakumar Yadav are the most critical batters in the team. This is as good a batting lineup as one can ask for. In fact, if they get the batting order right, this will be the best batting lineup in the competition.

From an All-rounder perspective, the Mumbai Indians rely heavily on Hardik Pandya and Mitchell Santner. These two are the most accomplished ARs in the team, and to support them, MI have two part-time ARs, Will Jacks and Naman Dhir. In addition, Allah Ghazanfar and Deepak Chahar can also bat if they feature in the starting 11 together. For the bowling department, Jasprit Bumrah, Trent Boult, and Deepak Chahar are the top 3 leading bowlers in the side that form a solid core in the team.

Having seen the strong core of 11 players, let’s now move on to the backups, and we are looking at 9 names across the three departments. In the batting department, we have Bevon Jacobs and Robin Minz. Among All-rounders, the Mumbai Indians have Corbin Bosch, Raj Bawa and Arjun Tendulkar. Whereas among bowlers, the Mumbai Indians have Ashwani Kumar, Vignesh Puthur, Karn Sharma, and Allah Ghazanfar. That makes it a total of 20 players who are likely to be retained by the Mumbai Indians for IPL 2026.

IPL 2026 Best Released Players List for Mumbai Indians (MI)

1. Mujeeb ur Rahman (o)
2. Lizaad Williams (o)
3. Satyanayarana Raju
4. Reece Topley (o)
5. Raghu Sharma
6. Shrijith Krishnan (wk)

Now, let’s analyse the gaps that the Mumbai Indians have in the current squad, and the players they would ideally want in their squad to be able to complete their dream squad. If we look at the current squad, the Mumbai Indians have almost built a perfect squad, and there are hardly any gaps in the team since they are retaining as many as 20 players. After retaining 20 players, they will rightly have around 7 Cr for the Auction.

Since the Mumbai Indians already have a strong squad, they would ideally not do much shopping in the Auction, and will only want to add the backups for the main players. So, for 7 Cr, adding someone like Matt Henry, Mayank Yadav (assuming he is released by LSG), Backup keeper N Jagadeesan, backup spinner, Tanush Kotian, and probably backup opener Prithvi Shaw will make this team much stronger. Assuming most of these players will go at base prices, it will not be difficult to get all these players.

IPL 2026 Dream Squad and Players List for Mumbai Indians (MI)

Batters

• Bevon Jacobs (o)
• Pritivi Shaw
• Rohit Sharma
• Suryakumar Yadav
• Tilak Varma

Wicket-keepers

• N Jagadeesan
• Robin Minz
• Ryan Rickelton (o)

All-rounders

• Arjun Tendulkar
• Corbin Bosch (o)
• Hardik Pandya (c)
• Mitchell Santner (o)
• Naman Dhir
• Raj Bawa
• Tanush Kotian
• Will Jacks (o)

Bowlers

• Allah Ghazanfar (o)
• Ashwani Kumar
• Deepak Chahar
• Jasprit Bumrah
• Matt Henry (o)
• Mayank Yadav
• Karn Sharma
• Trent Boult (o)
• Vignesh Puthur

So, that completes the dream 25-member squad list for the Mumbai Indians for IPL 2026. The team looks much stronger again this time around, and if they manage the backups well in the Auction, the team can once again be competitive, and finally claim their sixth title, which has been missing for almost 6 years now. Moreover, Hardik should continue as the Captain of the MI team, with Suryakumar Yadav still not being given that title.

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