Delhi Capitals is one of the few IPL franchises which has always believed in investing on youth over the years. The results haven’t often gone in their favour but everything started to change last season once they started realizing the importance of having a good balance of experience along with youth in their squad. The change started right at the top of the management as legends like Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly got hired for forming and guiding the team. As things stood at the end of the season, they made it to the playoff stage successfully on the back of a dominating performance during the league stage.
They struggled in some areas though. Their home turf didn’t match the strength of their squad. It was mainly a turning track and even though they had young spinners like Sandeep Lamichhane and Rahul Tewatia, they lacked experienced spin bowling personnel. Amit Mishra was there, but he was largely out of form. But that problem is somewhat sorted now with the arrival of Ravichandran Ashwin during the trade window. Ajinkya Rahane has strengthened their top-order further as well. And, ahead of the 2020 season, they have released as many as nine players who appeared to be surplus to their requirements.
List of retained and released players by Delhi Capitals ahead of IPL 2020 Auction:
Squad: Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Shikhar Dhawan, Rishabh Pant, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra, Avesh Khan, Sandeep Lamichhane, Kagiso Rabada, Keemo Paul, Axar Patel, Harshal Patel, R Ashwin (Transferred), Ajinkya Rahane (Transferred)
Released: Chris Morris, Colin Ingram, B Ayyappa, Hanuma Vihari, Jalaj Saxena, Manjot Kalra, Nathu Singh, Ankush Bains and Colin Munro
Let us now take a deep dive into how the Capitals should approach the IPL 2020 auction. We will analyzing possible strategies and identify potential candidates they could look out for on December 19.
Available Slots: 11 (five overseas)
Purse remaining: Rs 27.85 cr
Voids to fill
Middle-order: One thing that looks totally sorted for Delhi is their top four. Why would they want to buy more players when they already have world-class batsmen like Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Rahane, Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer to shoulder the responsibilities. But one area they definitely need to focus on is their middle order. They have let players like Colin Ingram, Colin Munro and Hanuma Vihari go and thus, they would need to fill that void. They will definitely look for good Indian domestic batters who can play spin well. The track at Kotla demands such players. Delhi would look for good overseas lower-order power hitters too. That’s an area they struggled in last season.
Possible Targets: Robin Uthappa, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Glenn Maxwell (overseas), Eoin Morgan (overseas), Rohan Kadam, Virat Singh, Aditya Waghmode, Vijay Shankar
Overseas seam-bowling all-rounder
Delhi has released Chris Morris this season and they would be eager to plug that gap with another good overseas all-round option. They could even rebuy Morris if they get him at an even lower price. However, if that doesn’t happen, they will have to look for other replacements. And they might not only go for one but they could go on buying more as that would help them add depth to their squad.
Possible Targets: Sam Curran, Mitchell Marsh, Chris Woakes, David Willey
Pace Bowling department
Delhi’s spin bowling arsenal is sorted. They have hardly anything to worry about as they have as many as four spinners in Ravichandran Ashwin, Amit Mishra, Axar Patel and Sandeep Lamichhane. But they will definitely need reinforcements in their pace bowling department which has the likes of Ishant Sharma, Kagiso Rabada, Avesh Khan, Keemo Paul and Harshal Patel at the moment. While all five of them could be considered as frontline options, Delhi would definitely like to have a few good backups- both Indian and overseas.
Possible Targets: Jaydev Unadkat, T Natarajan, Pat Cummins (overseas), Tom Curran (overseas)