17th IPL: From Rishabh Pant to Hardik Pandya, look who's back for Indian Premier League 2024

Welcome back, Rishabh Pant: With the World T20 coming up this summer, Delhi Capitals' Rishabh Pant’s return to form would be to the benefit of the Indian team that’s shuffled wicketkeepers around in his absence. (Images via X/@DelhiCapitals)

The 17th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) starts with a fairly familiar buzz doing the rounds, one that has routinely popped up over the last few summers ahead of the league: Will this be M.S. Dhoni’s last rodeo? The 2023 edition was supposed to be, or rather assumed to be, his last IPL before the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) captain announced that he would stay on the grid a bit longer.

While Dhoni had not really announced that he would be quitting the IPL—the former India captain has in the past exited from key roles suddenly, without any elaborate goodbyes—his announcement to continue playing the IPL, in a convoluted way, seemed to corroborate his thoughts of leaving it. But that momentous occasion now seems postponed, perhaps till the end of this season’s IPL when the buzz will resume: Will MSD come back for 2025?

The 2024 season of the IPL is notable for the number of Indian international players who are making a return to the sport. While Dhoni, now long retired, does not exactly fit this description, he does make an annual appearance on a cricket field, which could qualify as some sort of a ‘return’. But it is other contemporary international players who are of greater significance, all of them coming back from personal issues or injuries or just for the lure of the IPL. Most of them have their own challenges to face up to, like fighting to get back into an Indian team (through the IPL) that seems to these days find suitable substitutes easily. For some, the IPL is just a way of getting back on the saddle.

Virat Kohli, now the father of a second child and absent from national duties during the England series, has never won the title with the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). The only active cricketer to have played the IPL for just one team since its inception, that absence of a trophy is a major glitch in the resume of the player with the most IPL runs (7263). It’s another matter that his absence was barely felt in the Test series against England, which India won 4-1. That leaves the competitive cricketer with much to prove over the next two-three months.

His successor as India captain, Rohit Sharma, has a contrasting record, as the most successful IPL captain with five titles. He has the fourth highest number of runs in the league (6,211), but faces a challenge of a different kind this season. Having been replaced by new recruit and returning MI player Hardik Pandya as the team’s captain, Sharma’s role in the team will evolve as the tournament progresses.

Pandya himself is returning to top flight cricket after an injury took him out of the 2023 World Cup. His return to MI, where he played since 2015 before leading Gujarat Titans for the last two seasons, came amid ESPN Cricinfo reports of a Rs 15 crore (approximately $1.8 million) salary and an undisclosed transfer fee to Titans, said to be the biggest player trade in the IPL. Pandya’s return to cricket, in time for the IPL, is already being seen as the player valuing the lucrative league over India duties. Pandya built up to his IPL return by playing the DY Patil T20 Cup in Navi Mumbai last month and some practice games organised by the National Cricket Academy (NCA) where he was joined by Rishabh Pant.

The Delhi Capital’s wicketkeeper, who has been out of action since a car accident in December 2022, will probably lead the team in the IPL (the other option is David Warner). How Pant plays would be far more interesting than what he does with the team, which has never won the title. With the World T20 coming up this summer, Pant’s return to form would be to the benefit of the Indian team that’s shuffled wicketkeepers around in his absence.

pic.twitter.com/pIbw8CB6v2— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) March 13, 2024

Along with Pant and Pandya, K.L. Rahul may return to the IPL with the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) after sitting out of most of the England series with an injury. Rahul led LSG to the eliminators in the 2022 and 2023 seasons, and has one of the best batting averages in the league (4,163 runs at an average of 46.78), but has been frequently laid low with injuries. While it is not yet clear if Rahul will play this season—in whole or in part—the IPL has the ability to draw players out in time for its matches.

Shreyas Iyer, who was dropped from the Indian team during the England series, lost out on his central contract with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) subsequently for sitting out of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy quarterfinal, will lead Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). He scored a fluent 95 in the Ranji Trophy final against Vidarbha earlier this week, shaking off some of the disapproval he received for lack of runs on the field and lack of intent off it. The IPL, in which he has 2,776 runs from over a hundred games, will allow him an opportunity to knock back into the Indian side, despite his—like Rahul—fragile fitness.

For most of the players, the IPL is their ticket to the World T20. For Dhoni, it’s just another edition in which he can smile past all the will-he-won’t-he questions.