Delhi Capitals started their campaign in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) season with the last-ball win over Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) earlier this week. They chased down 210 runs, with Ashutosh Sharma playing a starring role, coming in as an impact player. While they don't have any injury issues, the Capitals faced a major setback just before the start of the season when England's Harry Brook opted out of the tournament citing personal reasons.
The franchise had secured his services for a huge amount of Rs 6.25 crore in the mega auction. After his pullout, according to a report in ESPNCricinfo, the Capitals contacted England opener Ben Duckett to replace him who refused.
Even former England cricketer Michael Vaughan, on Cricbuzz's match show, recently revealed that Duckett refused to join after Delhi contacted him. "I did hear a whisper that they (Delhi Capitals) went for Ben Duckett, but Ben Duckett doesn’t wanna come over," Vaughan said. This is a pretty interesting development as Duckett was willing to play the IPL and had also registered for the mega-auction but went unsold.
Meanwhile, Delhi Capitals are yet to announce Harry Brook's replacement, even though the tournament has already begun. They are scheduled to play their next game against Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) at the ACA VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam in the 10th match of the season on March 30 and will be keen on continuing their winning run. In the meantime, they will also be hoping to sign an overseas player as Brook's replacement in the coming days.
Delhi Capitals squad for IPL 2025: Jake Fraser-McGurk, Faf du Plessis, Abishek Porel (wk), Sameer Rizvi , Axar Patel (c), Tristan Stubbs, Vipraj Nigam, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Ashutosh Sharma, Karun Nair, Donovan Ferreira, Tripurana Vijay, Darshan Nalkande, T Natarajan, Dushmantha Chameera, Ajay Jadav Mandal, Manvanth Kumar L, Madhav Tiwari