After playing 16 IPL seasons with 10 IPL in the name of Delhi Daredevils and then playing next 6 seasons with new name of Delhi Capitals hoping to start afresh, the closest Delhi franchise has got to the IPL title is when they played the IPL final against Mumbai Indians in 2020.
Having tried various combinations so far with famous players like Quinton De Kock, David Warner, Shikhar Dhawan, Kevin Peterson, there are still some missing pieces in the puzzle that has kept Delhi far away from grabbing their hands at the IPL trophy.
From time to time they have gone bags empty on one particular player in IPL auction. Be it Yuvraj Singh at 16 crores, Dinesh Karthik at 12.5 crores and they have also spent 10.75 crores on Shardul Thakur in 2022, but none of their what they thought their steal buy in the auction has shown results on the field.
Lets chart out the 5 reasons that could be the reason Delhi Capitals find themselves more often than not at the bottom of the table.
1)Weak talent scout :-
While on one side we have Mumbai Indians who have unearthed players like Hardik Pandya, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav, not much can be said about Delhi team.
Even RCB under Mike Hesson has found some very good prospects. It was RCB only who showed faith in the Bengal pacer Akashdeep who recently debuted for India in test. Mahipal Lomror also is turning out to be a good power hitter and looking a good prospect for India in shortest format.
But Delhi team has tried several uncapped players in recent seasons, none of them have really left an embark with his performance.
Be it Aman Khan, Lalit Yadav, Ripal Patel and now Ricky Bhui, none of their uncapped players have really arrived at the big stage to help their team out which really raises questions on their talent scout team.
Even this IPL season, KKR has introduced new 18 year old kid Angriksh Raghuvanshi who slammed a quick half century on his IPL debut.
Delhi Capitals seriously need to think about picking talented young Indian players and for that they need someone who has an eye for the talent and with what is seen upto this IPL season, their talent scout team can certainly do a better job.
2)Coaching staff :- With 2 captains of World cup 2003 final teams to their side, it looks like what could you have asked better?
But being a great player and being a great coach are two entirely different which certainly overlaps at some points but the two might not need to at all.
Zubin Bharucha of Rajashtan Royals has never played for India, yet he is looked as respected coach in the cricket fraternity and has worked with lot of Indian players like Yuvraj Singh and Yashashvi Jaiswal being his latest Arjun.
Abhishek Nayar of Kolkata has only played 3 matches for India but he is also someone who has an eye for talent. It was him that spotted 11 year old Angkrish Raghuvanshi in Delhi and convinced his family to shift to Mumbai and 7 years later the kid is smashing the bowlers in his very first IPL.
He was also the man behind the resurgence of cricket career of their former captain Dinesh Karthik.
Ganguly and Ponting certainly need to introspect more as there have been long time the duo is associated with the Capitals but Delhi Capitals still trying hard to climb from the bottom of the table.
3)Captaincy :- While Rishabh Pant have been okay as far as leadership is concerned but Delhi Capitals certainly missing someone like Rohit Sharma in their squad to play the captain rule.
Recently there have been news of Delhi Capitals owner Parth Jindal statement on Rohit Sharma which goes like – ” If Rohit Sharma would have won 5 IPL titles for them, we would have renamed Feroz Shah Kotla stadium to Rohit Stadium”.
Delhi Capitals can certainly benefit from former Mumbai Indians Captain joining them in the next season but that is only an speculation till we see it in the paper.
4)Team combination :- One thing where Delhi capitals have certainly could have done better is team combination. With the youngsters they have signed in these years, those youngster never got that trust from the team management. Sometimes they got fewer balls to show their skills and sometimes the player themselves picked were not made for the big stage.
With the impact rule player playing a crucial role this season, its important for Delhi Capitals to have one strong dimensional players rather than 2 or 3 dimensional players which certainly have lesser impact to make in the shortest format of the game.
5)Cricket academies talent output : -Delhi Capitals certainly have the most number of cricket academies running all over India but none other than former u19 captain Yash Dhull from the academies have tasted some success and played for them.
After having such a wide coverage all over India to spot young cricketers, there have been very few or only one who has went on to represent Delhi Capitals.
If New Zealand with a population of 50 lakhs can defeat India in the World Cup final, it will be wrong to say that India with population of 140 crores where everyone wants to be cricketer will have less talent pool to spot from.
