IPL 2018: How each franchise might line up

#3 Delhi Daredevils

DD has a good combination of innings builders and power hitters

List of players bought by the DD at the IPL 2018 auction –

Rishabh Pant, Chris Morris, Shreyas Iyer, Glenn Maxwell, Gautam Gambhir, Jason Roy, Colin Munro, Mohammed Shami, Amit Mishra, Prithvi Shaw, Rahul Tewatia, Vijay Shankar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Shahbaz Nadeem, Gurkeerat Mann, Jayant Yadav, Daniel Christian, Trent Boult, Manjot Kalra, Abhishek Sharma, Sandeep Lamichhane, Naman Ojha, Sayan Ghosh

The Delhi Daredevils have struggled a lot in the past as they have constantly been in the bottom three teams for five years. They hired Ricky Ponting as their head coach this season and tried to buy some good players in the auction.

They bought back the local boy Gautam Gambhir as well and appointed him as their captain. Gambhir led KKR to two title wins in 2012 and 2014 and he will try to repeat it with Delhi Daredevils.

Here is the probable XI for DD:

G Gambhir(c); C Munro; S Iyer; G Maxwell; R Pant(wk); V Shankar; C Morris; KG Rabada; S Nadeem; A Mishra; H Patel.

Daredevils look like the most stable and balanced side on paper. They have a perfect combination of six batsmen, one all rounder and four bowlers. They have players who have a lot of experience in the T20 format.

They have a great combination of power hitters like Maxwell, Munro and Pant along with batsmen like Gambhir, Iyer and Shankar who can provide stability to their batting and can bat till the end.

Along with this, they have quality pacers like Rabada, Trent Boult and Morris and very experienced spinners like Mishra and Nadeem.

Unfortunately, there is a possibility that Delhi will have to start without their main Indian pacer, Mohammed Shami, as he met an accident. But they still have a good option in the form of Harshal Patel who performed decently in the Ranji season.

They also have part-timers in the form of Munro and Maxwell who have proved vital with the ball for their international sides. They can also use Jayant Yadav as a spin option.