KL Rahul Rejects DC Captaincy Ahead Of IPL 2025: Indian Cricket Team KL Rahul has reportedly turned down the offer of being the captain of the Delhi Capitals franchise ahead of IPL 2025. Retained all-rounder Axar Patel is now being looked upon as the alternate leader.
In late 2024, the mega auction for the 2025 season of the Indian Premier League was held, in which Rahul was bought for Rs. 14 crore by the Capitals. When he was bought, it was assumed that the star batter would captain the side in IPL 2025, seeing how they did not retain and then let go of their former captain Rishabh Pant.
KL Rahul Rejects DC Captaincy Ahead Of IPL 2025
But now, it seems that this will not be the case. In a recent report by IANS, it was claimed that KL Rahul has now refused the offer of captaincy by his new IPL franchise. The report suggests that he was approached by the Delhi-based franchise with the offer of leading the team for the coming season, which he did not take up on.
Rahul has a lot of experience as a captain in the IPL. He has been in the leading role in a team since 2020. That season, he was named captain of a struggling Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings) side and was in the position for two seasons. Ahead of the 2022 mega-auction, he was drafted by the newly minted Lucknow Super Giants, of which he was the captain for three seasons.
This will be KL’s fourth IPL franchise. And now, he has played for all four teams that have never won the league, which sure is a strange coincidence.
Returning to Rahul, he has raised his stock in 2025. For the Indian Cricket Team, he had a decent Border-Gavaskar Trophy and has now been instrumental in the national team’s victorious campaign in the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, cementing his place in the national ODI team.
But with KL Rahul not taking up the Delhi Capitals captaincy, the question is, who will captain the side in IPL 2025? There are a few contenders for the job. Veteran South African batter Faf du Plessis could lead the franchise in the upcoming season as he is coming in after a three-year successful captaincy stint with the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. A veteran pacer like Mitchell Starc might also provide a decent captaincy option.
But there is now one front-runner in the race to be the DC captain, and that is all-rounder Axar Patel. After a few good seasons with the Capitals, Axar was the first retained player at a price of Rs. 16.50 crore. While the Gujarati all-rounder has never captained an IPL side, he has been in the league long enough and is a big enough fixture of the national team that he might just get the nod for the leadership position in the 2025 season of the Indian Premier League.
In their opening game of the season, the Delhi Capitals will face the Lucknow Super Giants in the ACA/VDCA Stadium in Vishakhapatnam on Monday, March 24.
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