Mumbai Indians, winners of the IPL for five times in their history, have announced the head coach of the outfit for IPL 2025 – Mahela Jayawardene. He will be replacing Mark Boucher, who has been the head coach since the beginning of IPL 2023 and 2024. The legendary Jayawardene had been the head coach of MI from 2017 to 2022, during which the franchise won three IPL titles: a historic third title in 2017, making the side the most successful side of the league. Under his mentorship, MI also won two more titles in 2019 and 2020, which helped bring the total count to five, only comparable to CSK after that.
In 2022 Mahela moved to become the Global Head of Cricket and was responsible for enhancing the global teams of MI across leagues while coordinating with coaching staff to win trophies in MI (WPL), MI NY (MLC), and MIE (ILT20).
Jayawardene comes back as head coach in the wake of the disastrous 2024 season for MI, ending at the very bottom of the points table with only four victories in ten matches under the badge of new skipper Hardik Pandya. Pandya had come over from Gujarat ahead of the start of the 2024 season and took over as captain in place of Rohit Sharma who has led all five triumphs. He was, however booed throughout the season by fans at Wankhede Stadium after Pandya’s promotion.
𝟙𝟟, 𝟭𝟴, 𝟙𝟡, 𝟚𝟘, 𝟮𝟭, 𝟮𝟮 & 𝗔𝗚𝗔𝗜𝗡!
Welcome back, 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗖𝗼𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗠𝗮𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗮 𝗝𝗮𝘆𝗮𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗲𝗻𝗲 💙#MumbaiMeriJaan #MumbaiIndians | @MahelaJay pic.twitter.com/c1OvP9OZSZ
— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) October 13, 2024
Akash Ambani, owner of MI said, “We are thrilled to have Mahela back as the Head Coach of Mumbai Indians. We are looking forward to his immense leadership, cricketing acumen and passion for the game with great excitement.”. With our global teams now settled into their respective environments, the opportunity to present him with a chance to return to MI had to be seized upon. His leadership, knowledge, and passion for the game have always been a boon for MI. This too will be the right time to thank Mark Boucher for the contribution he has made over the past two seasons. His experience and contribution were influential in his lifetime, and now he is a part of the MI family,” as said by Akash Ambani in a media release.