Delhi Daredevils - A look at the franchise's record in IPL and is this 'the' year for DD?

Kevin Pietersen

IPL is a festivity, a carnival of cricket where the nations don’t play but 8 highly competitive teams do. If you remember the much hyped first season of the IPL, the excitement among the fans was unparalleled. I myself had many question in my mind – which team is the strongest, who are the best T20 players, will spinners do well or will the pacers will be more deadly! And so many more questions that popped into every cricket fan’s mind.

Season 1

Sticking to the point of discussion, in the inaugural edition of IPL, being a Delhi-ite, I was naturally motivated to support the team from my city. The intent from the team was clear, as the slogan suggested ‘khelo front foot pe’ – the strategy from the owners was to bid for the players that will get the franchise much needed support from the fans and with the nature of the format asking the players to be aggressive, it will be fair to say that the Delhi Daredevils owner’s knew the right ‘mantra’.

Even though a cricket fan had a very minimal knowledge about T20 cricket during the first season of the IPL, it was to be understood that the franchisee with majority of local players performing for them will be benefited highly from their competitors. Delhi Daredevils seemed to have taken this well into consideration and chosen a perfect team (locals and foreigners), players like :- Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Tilakaratne Dilshan, AB De Villiers, Glenn McGrath, Daniel Vettori, Shoaib Malik, Shikhar Dhawan, Amit Mishra, Farveez Maharoof, and the big hitter in David Warner.

One could hardly argue about the strength of this team but it was about capitalizing on this strength and playing according to their potential in the tournament which this side managed to do. The local boy from Delhi i.e. Gautam Gambhir managed to secure the 2nd position in the leading run scorer tally with 534 runs to his name at an average of 41.07, with 86 as his highest score.

There were many good individual performances especially in the batting department, and if at all, it was the bowling which was the main concern. Even though Delhi had bowlers like McCGrath, Maharoof, Mishra, Vettori in their ranks, they could still not secure the much vital early wickets in many of their matches which cost them but it was always the batting that made up for the poor performance with the ball (while chasing) or if batting first, the batsmen insured that they give their bowlers a fair target to defend.

And so this weakling of bowling cost them when it mattered the most, in the semi-finals against Rajasthan Royals, Delhi Daredevils bowlers put up a poor show with the ball and allowed Rajasthan Royals to score 192/9, in reply to which the Delhi Daredevils batting collapsed like a pack of cards as they were bundled out for 87. Thus came end to the first season for Delhi Daredevils, a team which had great promise to win the tournament but failed when it mattered the most BUT it was a 50-50 feeling for a Delhi Daredevils fan, the performance from the team was satisfactory considering that it was only the first season and every team struggled in selecting the right composition for their side.

Season 2

Played in South Africa, the pitches were expected to be bouncy and favorable to batsmen who like the ball coming onto the bat and Delhi Daredevils had such batsmen in Gambhir, Sehwag, Dilshan and the local boy i.e. de Villiers.

Season 2 started off on a very positive note for the Delhi Daredevils, in the league stage, the intent from the team was clear – we need to capitalize on our strength i.e. batting and give our bowlers the much needed confidence, the morale booster of knowing that even if the bowling fails, the batting can cope-up with the pressure and get the team to the finishing line as winners.

Delhi Daredevils however were hit by a big blow after losing their vital player in Sehwag, mid-way through the tournament due to an injury. However, it were de Villiers and Dilshan that took over the responsibility of stabilizing the team and consistently performed well and took their team to a strong platform in most of the matches.

In spite the solid performance that the team put forward in the group stage, the Delhi Daredevils team again failed to perform when it mattered – in the semifinals vs Deccan Chargers (which later went on to win the tournament). Even after being the leaders of the table after the league stage, the team still couldn’t get pass the critical semi-finals stage and again the Delhi fans were left shattered and asking for more.

Season 3

This is the season from where Delhi’s performance started declining. In the 14 matches that the team played, it had the 50% winning percentage, winning 7 out of their 14 matches BUT the matches that they did win, were fairly easy wins for the team.

It was yet another successful IPL campaign for Gautam Gambhir – the captain, as an individual but regardless of his continued good performances with the bat, this season proved to be the most disappointing one in all the 3 seasons thus far. Despite the team having a strong ‘value’ on paper, the performances just weren’t apprehended on the field which resulted in a very dismissal performance in this particular season.

Season 4

The WORST season in all the 4 seasons for the Delhi Daredevils team and it’s fans. In the 14 matches that the team played, it could only secure 4 wins. The team management made the blunder of not retaining Gautam Gambhir in the side, he was sold to the Kolkata Knight Riders in the auctions and this perhaps made the situation from bad to worse for the Delhi Daredevils team.

This season can only be recalled for Sehwag’s blistering knocks of 80(47) and 119 (56) against Kochi and Deccan respectively. Apart from this, the season had many disappointments and merely any positives for the Delhi side, which after 2 satisfactory seasons in the IPL, had followed it up with a below-par performance in the next 2.

Season 5

Delhi Daredevils realized their mistake sooner than never, they knew that it was time to make some tough decisions. The team management brought in star players in Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene (as captain), Aaron Finch and Ross Taylor.

It was another solid performance up till the semi-finals stage from the Delhi Daredevils, securing the 1st position in the league table. Again though, it was the semi-finals where the Delhi Daredevils couldn’t take the leap and reach the finals.

Sadly for Delhi Daredevils and their fans, they lost both their matches, 1 against KKR in the Qualifier 1 and then again to CSK in the Eliminator.

The positive however was that, from the last season onward, there was heaps and bounds of improvements in the Delhi Daredevils side. After winning just 4 matches in the previous season, they managed to top the group stage table this time around which raised back the hopes and helped the team regain it’s faith among the fans.

Season 6

The owners of the Delhi Daredevils and all its players who were part of this season, would like to forget this season because all it did was – demoralize the team and franchisee further and further. Even though this season saw the incoming of cricketing great, Sir Viv Richards into the squad as their brand ambassador, Jeremy Snape being added to the support staff and renowned ‘Mushi’ Mushtaq Ahmed, the widely popular spin bowler from Pakistan been added to the squad as the spin bowling coach, the performances on the field were just not satisfactory enough to do justice to this solid team staff.

Mushtaq Ahmed and Viv Richards

Out of the 16 matches that the team played, they could only manage 3 wins which if compared to the last season, greatly shattered the hopes of the owners and fans – this is Delhi Daredevil’s worst performance in all the 6 seasons – post this, their worst was the 4^th season, in which they managed to secure 1 more win as compared to this season, meaning that they won 4 matches and in this season, they could only manage to win 3.

This was all that this season had in store for Delhi Daredevils fans, many negatives and only a glimpse of positivity i.e. cricketing greats joining the team staff.

Season 7 – Is this Delhi Daredevil’s year?

Season 6 can be referred to as Delhi Daredevils’ ‘worst season in the IPL’. After a dismissal show last season, the franchisee was forced to make some tough decisions and so, coming to the auctions of IPL season 7 (2014), the franchisee decided to retain none of its players from the earlier seasons and go all out on buying new players and building a whole new franchisee.

Daredevils retained no players, they came into the auction with a ‘full purse’ i.e. Rs 600 million (approx US$9.6).

The intention from the Delhi franchisee was clear, the players that they wanted in the side, they were willing to go all out and pay as much as needed to get them into the side and therefore, there were many high bidding from this franchise in the 2014 IPL auctions.

The 2^nd highest bid of this year’s auction was for Dinesh Karthik, who was purchase by Delhi Daredevils for a whopping 12cr. It’s very crucial to have a good WK in the side (local) that can bat a bit and guide the team during the important stages of the match. Karthik’s last 1 year even though has seen him in and out of the Indian team but still, his performance in last year’s Champions Trophy will certainly boost his morals coming into this year’s IPL.

On paper, Delhi Daredevil’s squad with a whole new look gives the fans a sense of positivity. All the players are new to the side and this should certainly benefit the franchise – each player would be looking to justify the owner’s bidding on them and stand successful on the confidence that the owner’s have shown in them.

Of course though, there’s a flip side to the coin – new players means a whole new bunch of players playing together, which means that it will take some time for the players to get comfortable around each other. But that’s something every franchisee will have to tackle this year. Each franchisee has many new player’s in it’s side and for today’s cricketers who play all around the world (international and domestic cricket), it shouldn’t be a big task to mingle around with fellow cricketers, even from other countries.

Is the aggressive captain in Pietersen, just what the franchisee was looking for, all these seasons?

Delhi Daredevils will be led by Kevin Pietersen in this year’s IPL. Regardless of Pietersen stressing on the fact that he’s not here in the IPL ‘to prove critics wrong’ – we as fans, wouldn’t mind if he opts for the way of scoring runs and answering his critics back. This remains to be seen though. The question is – can Pietersen’s aggressive captaincy guide the team to glory? That’s for you to decide.