The Delhi franchise in the IPL - initially named Delhi Daredevils and subsequently Delhi Capitals - has been trying to find ways to inscribe its name on the glittering cup. At least on one occasion, it turned out to be a case of so near and yet so far.
Over the last few seasons the joint owners, JSW GMR Cricket Pvt Ltd, applied its mind to get a magic combination to win the title, but it could not outsmart Mumbai Indians in the title match five years ago in 2020.
Some of the game-changing players have donned the Delhi team's cap starting with the Prince of Najafgarh, Virendra Sehwag, the pocket dynamo in Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw and Australian left hander David Warner. It also had solid batters like Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, A B de Villiers, Quinton de Kock, Kevin Pietersen in the set up.
The team fielded successful fast bowlers like Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, and spinners Amit Mishra, R.Ashwin, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav, but the Capitals just could not get its act together.
As Delhi Daredevils - bought at $ 84 million - the team reached the semi-finals in the first two seasons and advanced to.the playoffs four times including the final of 2020. Iyer (65 not out) and Pant (56) did their best at the Dubai International Stadium pitch to take their team to 156, a modest total that was surpassed by Mumbai Indians losing five wickets and with its skipper Sharma making 68.
For this season the Capitals have retained Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, South African Tristan Stubbs and Abhishek Porel. Axar hss been with the team since 2019 and the left- arm spinner allrounder has been named the captain with Faf du Plessis as his deputy.
The team took a few good calls at the auction in Jeddah by going for Australian opener Jake Fraser-McGurk, K.L.Rahul, du Plessis, Karun Nair and fast bowler Mitchell Starc who made the vital difference for KKR in the last season's final against the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the experienced home talents in T.Natarajan and Mukesh Kumar.
With Fraser-McGurk at the top, Delhi must be hoping for dream starts. But who will be his partner ? The team has a proven talent in du Plessis which means two other overseas slots will most probably go to Stubbs and the left-arm fast bowler Starc.
Fraser-McGurk played nine matches for the franchise last year and scored at 14.04 runs an over for an aggregate of 330 runs with four half centuries. He smashed 32 x4s and 28 x 6s.
The Delhi batting should revolve around Fraser-McGurk, Stubbs, Rahul, du Plessis, Nair and Patel. Stubbs made 378 runs last year with 24 x 4s and 26x 6s. Stubbs' strike rate was 11.45. Nair has been in the thick of form across formats.
Apart from du Plessis, Delhi can look at Porel as an opening option. He opened the innings on three occasions last year and put on 114 runs with Fraser-McGurk against MI. But to start with Delhi may go with du Plessis who made 438 runs last year, opening for the Royal Challengers Bengaluru.
Another opening option is Rahul who brings in a 132 match IPL experience and scoring 4183 runs as an opener. Rahul Is keen to focus on batting and keeping without the burden of captaincy. Rahul was in form in the ICC Champions Trophy putting up match-winning displays against Pakistan, Australia and New Zealand.
Clearly the Capitals did well to get Starc. He should lead the attack with other options in Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar, Darshan Nalkande, Mohit Sharma and the Sri Lankan, Dushmantha Chameera. The spin attack will handled by Yadav and Patel. The Capitals have other uncapped options too. Its bowling coach is Munaf Patel.
The Capitals have a new support staff with Hemang Badani as Head Coach. The old duo in Ricky Ponting and Praveen Amre are things of the past.
The franchise placed faith in England middle order Harry Brook, but he has ditched the team only to face dire consequences. He has been banned for two seasons from next year.
Delhi has played 252 matches and won only 115 for an unsatisfactory 45.63 win ratio. It has played 82 at the Feroz Shah Kotla and won 37 and lost 44. There is a message that it has to start dominating and winning home ground matches to gain confidence in order to do well in away matches. In short Delhi needs to pull up its socks to be regarded as a force.
Published: 19 Mar 2025, 09:08 pm IST
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