Delhi Daredevils / Delhi Capitals – 10 Captains:
For a team that possessed big names like David Warner, Virender Sehwag, AB de Villiers, and so on, it is a surprising fact that till now, Delhi Daredevils, which is known as Delhi Capitals now has never won an IPL title.
In the first two seasons, the tremendous opening batsmen Virender Sehwag was the skipper of Delhi, and then in the third season, he handed over the captainship to Gautam Gambhir to focus on his batting. But just after one season, in the 4th edition of IPL, Sehwag was returned as captain. Towards the conclusion of 2011 IPL, in three matches, all-rounder of Australia, James Hopes captained the team.
Delhi Daredevils performed the best in 2012 IPL and leading the points table, but surprisingly at the end of the season, Sehwag left the captain position, then Mahela Jayawardena, the Sri Lankan batsman was appointed as the DD captain for the Champions League T20.
In the 2013 IPL, Mahela Jayawardena led Delhi Daredevils. But before the middle of the tournament, David Warner took the responsibility of captain for two matches. In the 2013 IPL, DD finished the season at the bottom of the points table which led the franchise to change the team completely. Then Kevin Pietersen became the skipper of the new-look team, and vice-captain was Dinesh Karthik.
However, in the first two matches of the 2014 IPL, because of injury, Pietersen was not included and Dinesh Karthik led the side. From the third match, Pietersen captained the team. But nothing had changed. In this season also, DD came last in the points table by winning only 2 matches out of 14.
In the 2015 IPL, JP Duminy was appointed as the new captain, but he also couldn’t change the fortune of the team as they ended the season with only 5 wins by playing 14 matches.
Delhi Daredevil franchise appointed Zaheer Khan as the 2016 IPL’s captain and it seemed working for the team as the team won 5 games out of 7 matches. But, in that season, DD could manage to win only two more victories in the other 7 matches, and end at 6th position.
With only 2 wins out of 5, DD started very poorly in the 2017 IPL, and Zaheer Khan ruled out of a few matches because of injury. Later stage, he returned back to the team but at that season also, DD finished at 6th position.
The return of Gambhir in 2018 IPL to Delhi Daredevil saw him being the captain for six matches of the season and then Shreyas Iyer was leading the team for the rest of the tournament.
Ahead of 2019 IPL, after the re-branding of the team, the Delhi capitals led into the playoffs under the mentorship of Shreyas Iyer but unluckily lost out on a single position in the last courtesy of a Qualifier 2 loss against the team of Chennai Super Kings.
DD/DC captains – Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, James Hopes, Mahela Jayawardena, Dinesh Karthik, Kevin Pietersen, JP Duminy, Zaheer Khan, Karun Nair, Shreyas Iyer.
