The IPL title has eluded Delhi Capitals for 18 seasons now, and it won’t be a surprise if the script is repeated in its 19th season. Delhi Capitals have more often than not lost their IPL seasons at the auction table itself save for a couple of seasons when Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly had put forth a quality side. Rishabh Pant’s unfortunate accident did create a void in the 2023 season and since then, things have once again gone off the boil. The swapping of management from JSW to GMR (as per agreement) also meant that new coaching staff headlined by Hemang Badani and Venugopal Rao came in with fresh philosophy and also got rid of Pant before the auctions.
Parth Jindal, one of the co-owners of DC didn’t mince words when he said that “introspection” would be needed on a lot of aspects.
“Sorry to all Delhi Capitals fans – like you I too am reeling from the second half of the season. What started so well ended extremely poorly. There are positives to take from this campaign but for now all focus on the next game which we need to win.
“Post the season there will need to be a lot of introspection on a lot of aspects,” Jindal wrote on ‘X’.
But it would be high time both Jindal and GMR’s head honcho Kiran Grandhi would need to sit across the table and admit that running the team two years at a time isn’t a practical solution.
One can bet his last shirt that Venugopal Rao, Badani and Munaf Patel will be nowhere to be seen after the 2026 season — that too if they are persisted with.
While the team’s coaching staff can be chuffed that releasing Pant was a prudent call looking at his disastrous show for LSG after a record fee of Rs 27 crore, but getting KL Rahul for half the price didn’t serve much purpose as the Indian Test specialist could hardly win any games where pressure factor was high.
Delhi Capitals, previously the Delhi Daredevils, have more often than not got it wrong at the auction table and hence, most of the seasons, they fail to qualify for the play-offs.
This year, the start had surprised one and all. At the halfway stage, they were in pole position winning five of their first six games but everything went haywire with one magical delivery from Mitchell Santner that squared up Karun Nair and DC lost the plot.
The biggest factor for DC would be losing four out of their five home games at Feroz Shah Kotla, a track which couldn’t be deciphered properly by the all-India coaching staff of Venu, Badani and Munaf.
The trio were the support staff that guided Dubai Capitals to its maiden ILT20 title but removing Ricky Ponting (whose PBKS team has looked one of the best so far) on that premise was a very poor call by the management.
If one uses football parlance, the coaches fit for ‘Championship’ (English second division) were given charge of an elite Premiership side. Handling an ILT20 team is very different from managing an IPL team.
The troika had no clue as to what kind of combination works at Kotla. Not that they had too many options to manoeuvre and beyond five foreigners, one being an out of form Jake Fraser McGurk, they didn’t have a reliable sixth option to fall back upon.
Why was Abishek Porel (301 runs), the second highest run-getter for DC, shunted down despite getting those starts? It does beg an answer.
People are at their wits’ end as to how a team can consistently lose home games. Even the only match that they won was a brilliant 20th and subsequent Super Over bowled by Mitchell Starc, who didn’t comeback after IPL resumed post one week suspension.
That match against Rajasthan Royals was as good as lost.
Ditto for the opening game in Vizag where Ashutosh Sharma and Vipraj Nigam pulled off a heist against LSG.
And the way things were going, the Dharamsala game that was stopped due to Pakistan drone attack was clearly being dominated by Punjab Kings, who would have scored anything between 220 and 240 had the innings been completed.
Among the coaching trio, Badani does have some pedigree having worked with Sunrisers Hyderabad but all those abreast with Indian coaches in the market would vouch that there is not much to write home about.
There were murmurs in IPL circuit as to how Director of Cricket Venugopal’s younger brother Gnaneshwara Rao was roped in as fielding coach, that too when DC already had a foreign fielding coach.
DC had some decent performances but there weren’t any exceptional outings.
Rahul once again had a 500-run plus season and at a decent strike-rate of over 148.
But like earlier years with other franchises, Rahul’s runs beefed his statistics but not the team’s.
His century against Gujarat Titans was a fine knock but even then the runs lost in the Powerplay cannot be overlooked.
Rahul is a fabulous player but the T20 grammar has undergone a sea change and neither was he good during big chases nor when DC needed to set up big totals.
The biggest disappointment is surely skipper Axar Patel and his bowling form nosedived considerably in this edition.
Five wickets from 12 games and unfortunately not being available on a Wankhede track where Mitchell Santner worked his magic did not help his cause.
This season for DC certainly seemed to be one without any planning. Till individuals won them games, they looked good but beyond that it was the same old saga.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Topics mentioned in this article
