Delhi Capitals appointed the former Indian fast bowler Munaf Patel as their new bowling coach for the IPL 2025 season on Tuesday. New head coach Hemang Badani will look at Munaf's vast experience to build up DC's squad after the management overhaul ahead of the 2025 mega auction.
Munaf, 41, featured for India across all three formats and was also a part of the 2011 ODI World Cup squad. Munaf also played for Rajasthan Royals (2008-10), Mumbai Indians (2011-13) and Gujarat Lions (2017) picked 74 wickets in 63 IPL innings. He was part of Mumbai Indians' title-winning IPL squad in 2013.
At the international level, the right-arm fast bowler made his ODI and Test debut in 2006 and T20I in 2011. Munaf failed to make an impact in the longest and the shortest forms but took 86 wickets in 70 ODI games at an average of 30.26.
Munaf retired from all forms of cricket in 2018 and will be making his coaching debut with the Capitals in the 2025 season. He replaced the former Australian James Hopes as Delhi's bowling coach. Delhi released all of their fast-bowling options during the retention day on October 31 and are likely to utilise Munaf's experience to fill the slots in the mega auction on November 24 and 25.
The Capitals failed to secure playoff qualification with just seven wins in 14 games last season. The franchise sacked head coach Ricky Ponting and his staff in July and replaced him with the former Indian cricketer Hemang Badani.
Venugopal Rao also replaced Sourav Ganguly as the new IPL Director of Cricket with the latter being given the responsibility to spearhead Delhi's WPL team in 2025. Delhi also went on to release their captain and star cricketer Rishabh Pant ahead of the 2025 mega auction.
Delhi Capitals retained Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs and Abishek Porel and will enter the auction with Rs 73 crore in purse.
