IPL 2017: Delhi Daredevils' Best Possible XI

The GMR-owned Delhi Daredevils have failed to reach the finals in the last nine editions of the Indian Premier League. Delhi’s line-up was never short of talented and dynamic players with the likes of David Warner, Virender Sehwag, Andre Russel and Glenn Maxwell to name a few. Glenn Maxwell’s IPL debut was with the Delhi Daredevils before he moved on to join the Mumbai Indians where he was finally recognised.

David Warner, too like his fellow Australian moved on to captain the Sunrisers Hyderabad side to an IPL victory. Several of these stars were removed from the team due to lack of performances. Every season, the team from Delhi has made reinforcements, who have not been able to deliver goods to the owners.

Another IPL season ended where the Delhi team failed to qualify for the playoffs. The Delhi side managed to win 5 out of their first seven games in the first half of the season, sitting comfortably at second on the table ended up in the sixth position due to a collapse in the second half of the season. Be it shabby performance on the field or be it injudicious purchases, the Delhi Daredevils have done it all.

Rahul Dravid, the coach of the Daredevils, decided to leave out the likes of Imran Tahir, Pawan Negi and Nathan Coulter-Nile just before the auctions for more purchasing cap.

Delhi has purchased former DD player Angelo Mathews, Corey Anderson, Kagiso Rabada, Pat Cummins. They have also bought in mystery spinner Murugan Ashwin, Navdeep Saini. In the batting department, however, they have invested on Aditya Tare and Ankeet Bawane.

Let’s analyse their possible best combination for the playing XI:

Openers:

Quinton de Kock and Shreyas Iyer

The lone fighter in the most inexperienced batting unit of IPL, de Kock showed his class last year, amassing 445 runs from 13 games at an average of 32.2 runs per innings. Despite blowing ‘hot and cold’ at times, he was by far the best batsman in the side.

His season-defining innings was the one against the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB), where he scored 108 runs in just 51 balls with 15 fours and three sixes. It was one of the best knocks that IPL 9 had witnessed.

Shreyas Iyer, on the other hand, was a disappointment for the side only scoring 30 runs in the six matches that he was part of. Iyer has since then worked heavily on his batting, and the results were shown as recently as the tour match against the Aussies where he scored a double century, which included hits that cleared the boundary.

Dravid would be hopeful that Iyer’s form would help the Daredevils to get off to a good start in the IPL.