Delhi Daredevils are dead. Long live Delhi Capitals.
It’s still the same team. Same players. Almost the same management, but a slight change in the ownership. Nothing has changed, really. Except that nobody really expects much from this team.
Delhi Capitals, or the team formerly known as Dehi Daredevils, have been the perennial poor performers of the IPL. Forget winning the competition – very rarely have they even made it to the top-4.
This is a poor, poor team, who last made it to the semi finals of the IPL in 2008 and 2009, and barely made it to the play-offs in 2012. It’s not that they haven’t had big players in their ranks – they have had David Warner, for heaven’s sake. And have Rishabh Pant, the new sensation of Indian cricket. But they were never good enough and we don’t think they have it in them to do much in IPL 2019 either.
Yes, they have a new team – an opening combination of Shikhar Dhawan and Prithvi Shaw is the best you will get. Then there is Rishabh, of course. Shreyas Iyer is a talented batsman.
Chris Morris is a very good T20 all-rounder and they have Kabiso Rabada too, perhaps the best young fast bowler in the world today. However, they have serious problems.
For one, who are their best Indian fast bowlers? There’s only Ishant Sharma, who struggles in T20 cricket. They have completely untested fast bowlers such as Nathu Singh and Avesh Khan. How good are they really? We don’t know yet!
On the plus side, they have a brilliant talent in Sandeep Lamichhane, the first world class cricketer from Nepal. Sandeep made his debut very late in last year’s IPL when his team was virtually out of the competition. Even at that stage, he impressed and won a few games for his team.
Clearly, he is the X factor in the Delhi Capitals line-up. As for the rest, we can only see average players like Axar Patel, Rahul Tewatia and Amit Mishra and so on. There’s nothing really to get excited about them.
Possible Delhi Capitals Starting XI: Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Colin Ingram, Rishabh Pant (wk), Chris Morris, Axar Patel, Sandeep Lamichhane/Kagiso Rabada, Rahul Tewatia/Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Trent Boult
Others in the squad: Ankush Bains, Hanuma Vihari, Colin Munro, Jalaj Saxena, Keemo Paul, Sherfane Rutherford, Harshal Patel, Manjot Kalra, Jayant Yadav, Bandaru Ayappa, Nathu Singh, Avesh Khan
Prediction: Hard to predict where Delhi Capitals are going to end up. They are not going to win the IPL 2019, that’s for sure. But they have some exciting young talent like Prithvi Shaw, Sandeep Lamichhane, Kagiso Rabada and of course, the new sensation of Indian cricket, Rishabh Pant. So everyone will be interested in them and will want to watch their matches. They are going to be entertainers for sure, and may reach the play-offs. But they just do not have the bowling attack needed to win the IPL 2019.
