One of the most mystical tales in the history of Indian Premier League (IPL) is that of Delhi Daredevils (DD), now Delhi Capitals(DC), who have featured in all the editions of the tournament without any title to show for.
Usually, the DD’s, and now the DC’s, end up on the bottom half of the table, with odd seasons of brilliant cricket, where they reached the playoffs.
However, the Delhi-based franchise is renowned for boasting epic lineups, with the best T20 batsmen and bowlers around the world. But, it has also had the tendency of letting go off their best players.
The players they let go-off usually turned out to be indispensable for their franchise, such as AB de Villiers for Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), Gautam Gambhir and Andre Russell for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). Even England and former Daredevil, Kevin Pietersen, has seconded the opinion.
Moreover, their recent strategy of backing young Indian talents and bidding high for overseas cricketers has worked well under the Ricky Ponting coached era.
Former Delhi batsman Aakash Chopra, who has named innumerable best XI lineups of-late, went ahead and picked his all-time DC XI.
In his lineup, ‘Nawab of Najafgarh’ named Virender Sehwag as the captain of the side. The hit pair of Viru and Gauti, who have batted together for Delhi Ranji team, DDs, India, ONGC, and also bat together in Chopra’s all-time DC XI.
Interestingly, there was no place for Pietersen, who was once instrumental in the team reaching the semi-finals in one of the seasons.
Young guns Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer occupy the middle-order, along with De Villiers, who donned DD’s colours during the first three seasons of the IPL. The other overseas player in the lineup is AB’s former Protea teammates Chris Morris and JP Duminy.
Express pacer Dirk Nannes, who represented DD in the first few seasons of IPL, shared the new ball with former India and Delhi legend Ashish Nehra.
The spin duties were appointed to iconic DC tweakers Shahbaaz Nadeem, who played the most number of seasons for the GMR-owned franchise.
Here’s Aakash Chopra’s all-time DC XI:
Virender Sehwag (c), Gautam Gambhir, AB de Villiers, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (wk), JP Duminy, Chris Morris, Shahbaz Nadeem, Amit Mishra, Dirk Nannes, Ashish Nehra.
