Delhi Capitals are gearing up for a new captain this IPL season after the departure of Rishabh Pant to Lucknow Super Giants. A couple of days back, Delhi Capitals appointed Axar Patel as their captain.
Now, the team has announced that the South African superstar, Faf du Plessis, will be the vice-captain of the Delhi Capitals unit this year. Du Plessis is coming from RCB, where he was captain till the end of IPL 2024. He was released by the RCB ahead of the mega IPL auction last year. Delhi Capitals acquired his services for DC for his base price of INR 2 crore. He was chosen for the vice-captaincy role ahead of KL Rahul, another IPL captain who moved to DC this year.
Have a look at the way DC chose to announce this.
The former South African player has been the captain of the national team of all formats. He started his IPL journey in 2012 for Chennai Super Kings. RCB bought him in the auction in 2022. Virat Kohli stepped down from the captaincy of the RCB franchise ahead of that season. Faf du Plessis was given the charge of captaining the team. He led the RCB for three seasons straight and the team reached the playoffs in 2022 and 2024. However, they have yet to win a trophy in the last 17 years of IPL.
The 40-year-old South African remains active in franchise cricket and last played in SA20 for Joburg Super Kings this year. He has an impressive record in IPL as well with 4571 runs from 145 matches at an average of 35.99 and a strike rate of 136.37.
Just like RCB, Delhi has also never won the coveted IPL trophy. In an effort to remedy that, they have overhauled the complete unit this year. They even removed Ricky Ponting and other supper staff members. They put Hemang Badani in charge as head coach and Matthew Motts as assistant coach. Other support staff members include Kevin Petersen, Munaf Patel, and Vijay Bharadwaj.
Making Axar the captain of the franchise was also a part of the whole rejig. Their captain Rishabh Pant went back to the auction and was picked up by Lucknow Super Giants, where he was named captain of the team.