The Axar Patel - led franchise finished fifth in IPL 2025.
The preparations for the 19th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) will soon be in full swing. The auctions for the upcoming season are scheduled to be conducted in December this year. The top management of every franchise would be hooked to their laptops by now, to tune in with their excel sheets in the lead up to the next season.
Out of all the teams in the tournament, one of the most curious cases would be the Delhi Capitals (DC). The franchise experienced a roller-coaster of a season last year. They started off on the best note, winning four out of the first four fixtures. However, their momentum was derailed in the second half of the tournament, which robbed them of a spot in the playoffs.
The franchise promoted Axar Patel at the helm, and made some strong investments in players like KL Rahul, Faf du Plessis and Australian pacer Mitchell Starc. However, out of the many players bought, the franchise would be eager to release a bunch of them in order to be well set for the next season. Here are some of the players that the Delhi Capitals signed in the 2025 auctions, but will think of releasing ahead of the 2026 season.
The impact that the Australian opener has had in the shortest format would not propel him anywhere near to this list. However, Jake Fraser-McGurk has underperformed massively in the most recent season for the Delhi Capitals in the IPL. His standout performance came in the 2024 season, on the back of which he was signed for another year. But this time, it was the other side of the coin which surfaced.
In six innings, Fraser-McGurk could only manage a mere 55 runs. His average dropped to under 10, which were worrying signs for the franchise. As a matter of fact, the Capitals have got the services of KL Rahul and Faf du Plessis at the top of the order, with some promising talent in the form of Abhishek Porel at three. Hence, it wouldn’t be surprising to let go of Fraser-McGurk.
The Sri Lankan pace wizard has represented three teams in the IPL so far, but hasn’t managed to stay with any of them for over a year. And it seems like the trend shall continue this time too. In six games for the Delhi Capitals in 2025, Chameera was able to scalp just four wickets in the six matches which he played in, which would not give Axar & Co. a lot of promise.
Moreover, the 33-year-old Sri Lankan pacer can generate serious pace, but lacks control. On many occasions, he was seen drifting towards the leg-side of the batter, giving away free runs. His services were attained for a sum of INR 75 Lakhs, and the franchise wouldn’t mind freeing that capital. To add to that, they would also try and sign a foreign pacer who can have more impact with control.
The Indian pacer was signed for a sum of INR 50 Lakhs ahead of the IPL 2025 season. Mohit Sharma is known to have a superb slower delivery, which he executes back of the hand. However, despite possessing figures that would make him efficient at the death, the right-arm speedster was not able to generate any promise for the Delhi Capitals in the latest season.
In eight matches, Mohit Sharma could only pick two wickets and could not stem the run-flow either. His best season came in 2023, when he bagged a massive 27 wickets in 14 games, with his best figures against the Mumbai Indians (MI) being 5/10. To add to the Capitals’ woes, Mohit went for a massive 10.28 runs per over in 2025, and would be one of the first names on the release list for the franchise.
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The left-arm pacer from Tamil Nadu made headlines for his performances for the national side. T Natarajan was handed a debut in all the three formats within a span of two months. As far as the IPL is concerned, he has featured in the playing XI for three teams. However, his most recent season with the Delhi Capitals was nowhere close to where he would have liked it to be.
As per head coach Hemang Badani, the left-arm pacer from Tamil Nadu could not recover fully from his injury, and hence missed most of the season. He could only feature in two games in IPL 2025, and went for plenty of runs in both the games. Having said that, the Capitals would prefer to release Natarajan ahead of the next season. The speedster was signed for a whopping sum of INR 10.75 Crore, a sum he hasn’t lived up to.
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