IPL: Top 5 purchases made by the Delhi Daredevils over the years

3. Virender Sehwag

Virender Sehwag

The ‘Nawab of Najafgarh’ was a marquee player for the Delhi Daredevils during the inaugural season of the IPL. He was also named their captain for that season.

Sehwag racked up 406 runs during the 2008 season at a healthy strike rate of 184. The “Jai-Veeru” ki jodi (Gambhir-Sehwag) worked wonders for Delhi in the initial few seasons.

Sehwag was at his belligerent best for the Daredevils, slamming more than 2000 runs for the team. He is also, still, the leading run scorer for the team.

Although he could not do much of note during the highly successful campaign of 2009, he was instrumental in leading Delhi to the playoffs in 2012, a season in which he scored nearly 500 runs.

With growing age, Sehwag’s hand-eye coordination deteriorated, which resulted in a pretty poor season with the bat in 2013. Thereafter, he was released by the Daredevils before being acquired by the Kings XI Punjab during the 2014 auctions.

Delhi have tried many openers at the top since then, but no one has been able to replicate Sehwag’s heroics so far.