Inevitably on the daybreak of each Indian Premier League (IPL) season, Delhi Capitals is confronted with a well-recognized, vexing query. Can this be the 12 months when the franchise lastly breaks the hoodoo and goes for glory in the summertime T20 extravaganza?
Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Punjab Kings, to a lesser extent, are the opposite two franchises on the receiving finish of this recurring question.
DC, runner-up in 2020, hasn’t had a look on the title since reaching the playoffs in 2021, ending fifth, ninth and sixth within the standings in 2022, 2023 and 2024 respectively.
But therein lies the attraction of the IPL: in any given season, groups are matched evenly sufficient for anybody to conjure up a real crack on the title.
Intrigue
Particularly after the most recent mega public sale, there’s a recent layer of intrigue about how one other main shake-up within the taking part in roster of the ten franchises will play out.
For Delhi, which named Axar Patel because the captain for the 2025 season, essentially the most high-profile acquisitions within the public sale have been Ok.L. Rahul, Mitchell Starc and Faf du Plessis.
With Axar, Tristan Stubbs and Kuldeep Yadav being amongst its retained gamers, these six may have to be on the coronary heart of the turnaround that the franchise is hoping to stage.
With England’s Harry Brook pulling out of the marketing campaign to focus on his hectic worldwide calendar after the IPL, the selection of the 4 abroad gamers to slot into the beginning eleven appears to be easy.
Deadly mixture
Jake Fraser-McGurk and du Plessis are at reverse ends of the spectrum of their careers, however they may make for a lethal opening mixture.
Stubbs will hope to repay the belief of the franchise by persevering with to blaze away within the middle-order. Starc will bear the duty of the tempo spearhead.
Marked change
A marked change from earlier seasons for Delhi stands out as the vary and high quality of Indian gamers at its disposal.
In Karun Nair, Abishek Porel, Sameer Rizvi and Ashutosh Sharma, there’s loads of home batting depth to assist take the stress off Rahul.
In the tempo bowling division, Mukesh Kumar, T. Natarajan and Mohit Sharma present loads of cushion.
Published – March 16, 2025 12:09 am IST
