Delhi Capitals will go into the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 with much optimism and some trepidation having splashing money on some big buys.
They won’t have Rishabh Pant, who has made a big money switch to Lucknow Super Giants in the auction. Despite some notable players leaving the franchise this season, the newly-built squad looks like a balanced one. In order to translate that into good performances, here’s what head coach Hemang Badani needs to do as DC go in search of their maiden IPL title.
Delhi Capitals need to address the elephant in the room. The arrival of Jake Fraser-McGurk was a shot in the arm for floundering Delhi Capitals in the IPL 2024. The Aussie youngster blasted his way to 339 runs from nine matches at a sparsely-believable strike rate of 234.04. It was his striking ability that prompted Delhi Capitals to use the Right To Match (RTM) card in the IPL 2025 auction and retain him for INR 9 crore.
But that was November. As March approaches they must be having many doubts over that decision and rightly so. Fraser-McGurk’s stock started falling as soon as the Big Bash League (BBL) 2024-25 season began. Bowlers found more than one weakness within the 22-year-old’s technique and dismissed him five out of 10 innings. When got into double digits, he recorded 21, 26, 12, 19 and a lone brilliant 95 off 46 balls.
When multiple injuries got him game time in two ODIs against Sri Lanka, he was dismissed for scores of 2 and 9. DC will look to the experienced head of Faf Du Plessis to open the innings alongside Abhishek Porel or even have KL Rahul to bat at the top.
Australian regulars are not reliable IPL players and there’s enough recent history to prove that. DC need to be pragmatic while dealing with Mitchell Starc who had mutually terminated his association with Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2017, opted out of the 2020 and 2022 auctions. There is nothing wrong with the left-armer prioritising himself but it will be naive of DC to not look for alternatives after he pulled out of the Champions Trophy due to personal reasons.
Starc is a definite starter if he can make himself available, but DC already have the likes of Mukesh Kumar, Mohit Sharma for the powerplay spells and a capable death-over pacer like T Natarajan. Even if the spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav or Axar Patel go for big runs, having one or two overs remaining on Mohit can help DC a lot.
Karun Nair is in national team conversations with his record-shattering 779 runs from eight innings in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2025. There is wisdom in making the most of his form at No.3.
If Faf du Plessis opens, then KL Rahul will be there in the middle order. Majority of the Karnataka batter’s IPL runs have come while opening, but he still has a strike rate of 130 and scored 324 runs from 11 innings batting at No.4.
Then there is Tristan Stubbs who is a great prospect for the No.5 or No.6 position. The South African youngster has scored over 1000 runs in T20s with a strike rate of 151 while batting at No.5. He has also played 29 matches at No.6 and has 676 runs at a strike rate of 150. Having a good mixture of experience and young talent in this line-up is a great sign for them.
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