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Delhi Daredevils (DD) in IPL 2016: Know your team

Will 2016 be water-shed season for Delhi Daredevils as we head into another heated and exciting round of player auction.

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Delhi Daredevils go into the auction with a head-coach being named. © IANS
Delhi Daredevils go into the auction with a head-coach being named. © IANS

Delhi Daredevil (DD) so far in the history of Indian Premier League (IPL) has been one of the most consistently under-performing side sans few season here and there (2009 and 2012). DD was picked up by GMR Group in 2008 to represent the city of Delhi. Daredevils play their home matches at one of the most controversial stadium in recent times at Feroz Shah Kotla, which has a capacity of 41,000. Daredevils in the past few years have Raipur International Cricket Stadium as their second home. Delhi started off its inaugural campaign under the captaincy of India’s most destructive batsmen Virender Sehwag as icon player along with Delhi’s very own Gautam Gambhir, international biggies like  AB de Villiers, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Glenn McGrath and Shoaib Malik to boast off. That season was one of the best times for DD as they reached the semi-final stage losing to eventual champion Rajasthan Royals (RR). ALSO READ: IPL 2016 auction: Complete list of IPL teams with funds before Indian Premier League (IPL) 9 auction

The year 2009 season saw a change of guard as Gautam Gambhir took over as captain where DD dominated most off the tournament only to lose out to an Adam Glichrist assault in the semi-final against Deccan Chargers. Delhi have seemingly improved its bowling capacity with the likes of Ashish Nehra and Dirk Nannes. David Warner also made an impact in this season after which he has risen to newer heights in IPL and international cricket. 2010 and 2011 saw DD reach new lows one after the other as they ended from fifth in 2010 to last in 2011 edition of IPL.

2012 was an complete overhaul of a season for DD as they changed the whole look of team with star-studded players like Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene and Ross Taylor. With Jayawardene being appointed as captain it was like a breathe of fresh air into the franchise who ended on top of the table only to loss out again in to final winners and runners-up Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK) respectively. 2013 season again told an old story for them as they finished rock bottom. DD did manage to acquire cricketing legends such as Viv Richards and Mushtaq Ahmed to boost the morale of the team but it only added to the misery. ALSO READ: Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2016: Know your team

DD went into 2014 edition all fresh and wanted a clean slate as they did not retain any players from previous editions including local boy Sehwag, who was one of the main attraction. DD managed to snatch players of premium caliber like Kevin Pietersen, JP Duminy, Ross Taylor, Dinesh Karthik, Imran Tahir and Quinton de Kock only to again face the brunt of being called as an highly immature and impactless side. Daredevils had roped in India’s world cup winning coach Gary Kirsten in a bid to achieve IPL glory by only ended up creating history of being again placed at the last position on the table. 2015 was no different where the ended on No.7 with likes of Yuvraj Singh, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Angelo Matthews in the squad. (Note: Yuvraj Singh was the highest paid player in 2015!).

Delhi has always had crowd and fan support pan India because of the star attractions as they had in their team the likes of Sehwag, Pietersen, Warner and Taylor, etc. Delhi was fortunate enough to have Bollywood star Akshay Kumar as their brand ambassador in the first season.

Will 2016 be water-shed season for DD as we head into another heated and exciting round of player auction on Saturday. Delhi going into the auction have around ₹37,15,00,000 in the purse to spend (hopefully this time they don’t go for flashy and single utility players). Delhi have retained few key members from last year starting with captain J P Duminy, Quinton de Kock, Imran Tahir, Nathan Coulter-Nile and Big Bash League 2015-16 star Travis Head, Among the Indian contingent they have former India pacemen Zaheer Khan(also bowling mentor), Amit Mishra, Mohammad Shami and Shreyas Iyer in the squad for ninth season of IPL.

(Vishal Mehra is a reporter at CricketCountry, who enjoys his weekly dose of anime, and plays cricket once a white moon. His twitter handle is @vishal_oxyjinn)

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