Published: Feb 06, 2016, 10:46 AM (IST)
Edited: Feb 06, 2016, 10:46 AM (IST)
With the Indian Premier League (IPL) Season 9 auctioning in process on Saturday, Delhi Daredevils have announced former India cricketer Rahul Dravid their mentor. Dravid is presently the head coach for India Under-19 team with India playing against Namibia in 1st quarter-finals at ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup 2016. Delhi Daredevil (DD) so far in the history of 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. READ: Rahul Dravid consoles Canada after loss to India in ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup 2016
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 impact-less side. 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. READ: ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup 2016: Rahul Dravid stresses importance of rotating strike
Dravid has been included in the ICC Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) Oversight Group to review its performance annually, if the latest reports are to be believed. The stylish former Indian cricketer, who is among the top run-getters in both Tests and One-Day Internationals (ODI), was included in the group in the ICC’s first meeting of 2016 at its Dubai headquarters. In an international career spanning 16 years between 1996 and 2012, Dravid represented India in 164 Tests and 344 ODIs, scoring 13,288 and 10,889 runs in the two formats respectively. He had also served as the full-time captain of the Indian team following the axing of Sourav Ganguly between 2005 and 2007.
