In a major development, Delhi Capitals (DC) have appointed Hemang Badani and Venugopal Rao as their new head coach and director of cricket, according to a Cricbuzz report.
Delhi Capitals recently parted ways with Ricky Ponting, who was named the franchise’s head coach in 2018. He was off to a good start, guiding the franchise to three consecutive playoffs in 2019, 2020 and 2021.
During his tenure, Delhi Capitals also reached their first final in the Indian Premier League in the 2020 season. However, the Shreyas Iyer-led team faced a heartbreaking defeat at the hands of Rohit Sharma’s Mumbai Indians, who managed his fifth title.
Furthermore, Sourav Ganguly was appointed Director of Cricket for Delhi Capitals (DC) in March 2023, and now it seems that he too has parted ways with the franchise as a new director of cricket has been appointed.
Hemang Badani and Venugopal Rao join DC support staff
On Wednesday, October 16, Cricbuzz reported that the Delhi Capitals have set their sights on their new head coach for the next two IPL seasons. Hemang Badani has been selected for the head coach position while Venugopal Rao will serve as the new director of cricket.
The duo are known for their immense professionalism and understanding of the game, and have been given the freedom to choose the rest of the coaching staff.
Notably, Hemang Badani and Venugopal Rao have been involved with the franchise’s subsidiaries in ILT20 in the UAE and Major League Cricket (MLC) in the US.
In ILT20 and MLC, Dubai Capitals and Seattle Orcas are owned by Delhi Capitals co-owner Kiran Kumar Grandhi of the GMR Group, who will take charge of Delhi Capitals in IPL 2025 and 2026 as in the previous two years, JSW managed things. .
Rishabh pant to be retained by Delhi Capitals
Recently, Rishabh Pant posted an interesting tweet where he wrote, “If I go to the auction, will they sell me or not and for how much?” This led to speculations about his exit from Delhi Capitals.
However, the wicketkeeper-batsman is reportedly all set to continue with the franchise in IPL. Recently, another PTI report suggested that Delhi Capitals decided to retain only three players.
The first player will be Rishabh Pant, who will get INR 18 crore, while Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav will be the next two retainers, and will get INR 14 crore and INR 11 crore. Additionally, Jake Fraser-McGurk and Tristan Stubbs are reported to be two players for whom DC will use RTM.
Several players choose not to be retained
In another important development, several big players are choosing not to be hired because they want to participate in the mega auction to know their real market value.
The main reason behind this move is the new RTM rule, which allows franchisees with the highest bids one last opportunity to increase their bid to the amount of their choice before exercising the Right To Match option.
The IPL 2025 mega auction is likely to be held by the end of November and the BCCI is yet to finalize the venue. The names of Dubai, Saudi Arabia and Singapore were being considered, but now Vienna is also being considered.