Australia's David Warner will lead Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Capitals (DC) in the forthcoming season of the T20 tournament. Even though an official announcement is awaited, the team management thinks Warner is their best bet to lead the team in the absence of regular captain Rishabh Pant who will not be able to recover in time for the competition. Pant met with a car accident in December last year and will miss most of the cricketing action this year.
Warner has rich leadership experience and has even lifted the IPL trophy as a captain back in 2016 when he led the Sunrisers Hyderabad to the title who beat Virat Kohli-led Royal Challengers Bangalore by 8-runs in a thrilling finale.
"David will be our captain and Axar Patel will be his deputy," a member of the ownership group of DC was quoted as saying in a report by Cricbuzz.
Warner is one of the veterans of the tournament and among the all-time leading run-getters. In 162 IPL matches, the southpaw has accumulated 5881 runs at an average of 42.01 and a strike rate of 140.69. He has scored a record 55 half-centuries and 4 hundreds in this competition.
Meanwhile, Axar is also a quality all-rounder and someone who has taken his game a notch higher in the recent years. Overall in his IPL career, he has scored 1135 runs from 122 matches at an average of 19.24 but those have come from lower down the order at a useful strike rate of 128.83. He has also been a handy with the ball and has over 101 wickets at an economy of 7.25.
Earlier on Thursday, Sunrisers Hyderabad appointed Aiden Markram as their captain. The franchise had parted ways with Warner after IPL 2021 and given Kane Williamson a chance to lead last year. However, they chose to let go of him before the Players Auction and have now trusted the Protean cricketer with the leadership responsibility in the new-look squad.