The Delhi Capitals (DC) men’s contingent is undergoing a change in the coaching department as the Parth Jindal-led JSW Sports will be in charge of the men’s team in the IPL for the next two seasons.
JSW Sports, which co-owns DC with GMR Sports, has appointed Sourav Ganguly as the head coach, Yuvraj Singh as the assistant coach, Chaminda Vaas as the fast-bowling coach, and Amit Mishra as the spin-bowling coach. These former cricketers replace Hemang Badani, Ian Bell, and Munaf Patel, who all were roped in by Kiran Kumar Grandhi as GMR ran the team for IPL 2025 and 2026.
There is a strong belief among several quarters that Jindal might opt for a new captain for DC for the next two seasons, and an official decision and announcement could be made in the weeks before or after the IPL auction, which is expected to take place in mid-December.
This is because DC failed to qualify for the playoffs under Axar Patel in the last two seasons, finishing 5th and 6th in the points table.
Delhi Capitals trade in Rishabh Pant: Is Pant set to reclaim DC’s captaincy?
Delhi Capitals have already made a huge trade soon after the IPL 2026 ended by bringing back former captain Rishabh Pant from Lucknow Super Giants and trading away leg-spinner Kuldeep Yadav to LSG while copping a net negative impact on the purse of only INR 1.5 crore: Pant agreed to a huge pay cut, going from INR 27 crore at LSG to INR 15 crore at DC, while Kuldeep traded for his existing fee of INR 13.5 crore.
While LSG ended up 7th in both seasons under Pant, the wicket-keeper had one successful season at the helm of DC. In IPL 2021, Delhi topped the league stage in Pant’s captaincy, but were knocked out in Qualifier 2. The next two seasons were disappointing, with DC suffering 5th and 6th position finishes before Pant and DC parted ways.
Now that Pant is back, will DC hand him the captaincy duties once again?
1983 World Cup-winning opener picks KL Rahul to be the new Delhi Capitals captain:
Another strong alternative for Delhi is KL Rahul, the dashing Indian keeper-batter who has vast experience of captaining in the IPL and has also held leadership roles in the Indian Test and ODI setups.
Rahul has led Punjab Kings and Lucknow Super Giants in 64 IPL matches with roughly a 48% success rate, including taking LSG to playoffs in two consecutive seasons.
Last year, Rahul was made the vice-captain of the Indian ODI team and this year replaced Pant as the deputy to Shubman Gill in the Test team.
Kris Srikkanth, one of the openers at India’s triumphant 1983 World Cup tournament, gave his vote to Rahul to replace Axar as the DC skipper and not Pant.
In his YouTube video, Srikkanth said, “Between Axar, Pant and Rahul, I’ll definitely appoint Rahul as the captain. He’s the best captain for them. Give him the captaincy and he’ll deliver results.”
When is the IPL auction?
There hasn’t been an official date set yet by the BCCI for the IPL auction, but going by the past years, the auction is expected to be around mid-December, and the franchises would be asked to finalize their list of retained and released players by mid-November.
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