Four matches into the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, the world was very rosy for Delhi Capitals (DC), with four wins and a top-of-the-table position. They had their first stumble on April 13, in their first fixture against the Mumbai Indians (MI), losing from a winning position. They seemed to get back on track with a come-from-behind Super Over win against the Rajasthan Royals (RR), but it was a false dawn.
From five wins in six games, DC managed just three points and one win from their next seven games. And they likely would have had just two points without the washout against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), because DC mustered only 133 for 7 batting first. Their massive 59-run loss to MI on Wednesday, May 21, sealed their IPL 2025 fate, ending their qualification hopes. It started with a stumble against MI and ended with an annihilation by the same team.
While DC had several standout individual stars, they could not come together as a team this season.
The opening combination
DC had five different openers this season: KL Rahul, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abhishek Porel, Faf du Plessis and Karun Nair. In T20 cricket, opening is the only fixed position. The rest are fluid depending on conditions, match-ups, and game situations.
As DC head coach Hemang Badani said, “A settled opening pair is only possible when your opening pair gives you a start. If you don’t get starts, you are bound to make changes to try and fill that gap, fill that void. We’ve not had those starts, and hence we’ve had to make those changes. We had Jake at the top earlier, did not work for us. Abhishek, and then we had Faf, then we also had Karun come in. It’s just that we haven’t had anyone really making sure that we get off to good starts. Our opening at the top was a worry for us, and I think it’s one of those reasons why we haven’t gone forward.”
In the Impact Player era, with deep batting line-ups, taking advantage of the Powerplay is crucial, and DC often could not do that.
The composition of the XI
One of the innovative ways in which some teams have used the Impact Player is to give themselves the option to either reinforce their batting or beef up their bowling. This is particularly for when teams are batting first, and they go in with their bowling XI. The logic is: if the top-order has a good day, and you don’t really need that extra batter at No 7/8, you can sub out a batter and get an extra bowler. Rajasthan Royals did this consistently, and DC did it a few times too.
The theory is fine, but if it does not work in practice, it needs to be ditched. What seemed to happen with DC’s line-up was they batted more conservatively, as if conscious that they would not use the Impact Player while batting. That defeats the purpose of the strategy, but DC did not change things quickly enough.
The support bowling
DC had some excellent frontline bowlers. Kuldeep Yadav is in the shortlist for bowlers of the tournament, having gone at a mere 6.85 runs per over while picking up 13 wickets in 12 innings. Mitchell Starc did the job of a strike bowler about as well as could be expected. He took 14 wickets in 10 innings. He won them a few games on his own, including the Super Over one. In others, he was expensive, but that’s what you budget for with Starc. Axar Patel was reasonably economical at 8.47, given he often bowled in Powerplays too, but he took only five wickets in 11 innings. Outside of these three, the attack frayed. So, in the games that Starc went for runs, there was no one stepping up to do a holding role among pacers. T Natarajan, who had bowled quite superbly for SRH last season, was given only two games and bowled in only one. That seemed like a bad miss by DC, especially when the other support bowlers were not having a consistent impact.
In the end, it was the bowling that lost them the game against MI, with the last two overs disappearing for a whopping 48 runs. They were missing both Starc and Axar, and that showed the inadequacy of the rest. Kuldeep was a shining exception, but he could not carry an attack on his own for the whole competition.
DC still have building blocks in place to be strong competitors next year, but only if they can align their strategy and tactics.
