With a new name, new crest and new colours, Delhi Capitals will be aiming to make their mark in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) after almost a decade of below-par outings in the cash-rich league.
Previously named Delhi Daredevils, the franchise is now jointly owned by the GMR Group and the JSW Group. In December 2018, the team renamed itself from the Delhi Daredevils to the Delhi Capitals.
After doing well in the initial couple of years, the Delhi franchise have never appeared in an IPL play-off. The last time they qualified for the play-offs was in 2012.
Delhi dominated the charts initially under the likes of Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, AB de Villiers, Daniel Vettori and Amit Mishra, but as the seasons went by it struggled to find their old charm and mostly finished at the bottom.
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For the upcoming edition, Delhi Capitals have strengthened the middle-order batting by investing a lion's share on Colin Ingram (Rs 6.4 crore), besides spending Rs 2 crore each to bag services of all-rounder Hanuma Vihari and Sherane Rutherford.
It also got veteran India pacer and local boy Ishant Sharma for Rs 1.10 crore. India discard Axar Patel was then bought for Rs 5 crore.
For the 2019 edition, Delhi retained 14 players and traded in 1 player (Shikhar Dhawan from Sunrisers Hyderabad).
The retained players are: Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant, Prithvi Shaw, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Harshal Patel, Rahul Tewatia, Jayant Yadav, Manjot Kalra, Colin Munro, Trent Boult, Chris Morris, Kagiso Rabada and Sandeep Lamichhane.
In the 12th edition of IPL, fans could witness the old charm of Delhi as several quality players were retained and bought by the franchise. Last year, Delhi finished at the bottom, losing nine matches out of 14.
(Gaurav Sharma can be contacted at gaurav.sharma@ians.in)
--IANS
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