3 reasons why DC should relieve Rishabh Pant of captaincy in IPL 2025
There have been a ton of contrasting reports floating around regarding Rishabh Pant's future at the Delhi Capitals (DC). Some claim that he hasn't decided whether he wants to be retained by his long-term team while others say he would definitely be the first-choice retention but might not be the captain in IPL 2025.
Pant has been one of the few players from his generation to stick with one team for his whole IPL career so far, despite achieving the greatest of highs in international cricket and not being able to do that for the franchise.
He is DC's marquee player and they have gone the distance to keep him happy. In 2021, when Shreyas Iyer (who took them to their only IPL final a year before) was injured for the first half of the season and Pant stepped in, DC decided to keep the latter as the captain for the second half too, even though the former had returned.
While there's a good case to be made about why this could be a chance for Pant to opt for a new challenge in the shape of a new team, just like Shreyas, we won't focus on that in this piece. Instead, we'd look at how it could be a good move for all parties involved to relieve Pant of captaincy and start IPL 2025 with a new leader.
#3 Pant as captain has just not worked
Let's start with the most simple point: Pant has captained DC in 43 matches so far and seen only 23 wins. That win percentage of 53.48 is only marginally better than Shreyas' 51.21, who oversaw a much more unstable time for the team from 2018.
In the COVID-marred 2021 season, DC finished at the top of the table with Pant leading a team meticulously built by Shreyas and Ricky Ponting in the two years before. However, they failed to reach the final and finished fifth and sixth respectively in 2022 and 2024 -- Pant's next two seasons as captain.
When he was out due to his severe injuries in 2023, DC seemed to be missing him more as a player than as a captain. It's also not a good look that Shreyas won the title with Kolkata Knight Riders in just his second season at the helm after leaving DC.
Pant is India's greatest-ever Test wicketkeeper and potentially one of the biggest all-format match-winner. However, captaincy seemed to have come to him because he was a great player and not as a reward for his experience in it.
Most captains who have taken their teams to IPL finals have had enough experience outside the league. No matter how good a player (and perhaps even a man-manager) Pant is, he might still need some time in international cricket or otherwise to be able to positively impact games with his ideas.
#2 Might free him up
In the 43 matches Pant has captained DC, he has scored 1205 runs at a strike-rate of 144 and an average of 35.44. In the 68 matches he has not captained in, he has scored 2079 runs at an identical average but with a strike-rate of 152.
It might not seem like a large difference but in his first season as captain, Pant's strike-rate was just 128.52, his second-lowest in the IPL. Before he was made captain, he had three seasons with strike-rates of over 160 (with a best of 173.60) but hasn't had one year like that since he started wearing the armband.
Although there's a good argument for how this could be because bowlers have figured him out better since his early years in the IPL. However, there's no harm in seeing it as how not having the responsibility of captaincy can bring Pant back to his pre-2020 T20 beast level which got him into international cricket.
Playing as a strike player under a captain who gives him a batting position of his choice and the freedom to play his shots could give DC a more potent weapon. It might give him some time to work on his weaknesses for good measure.
Pant can always give his inputs from behind the wickets without having the extra responsibility of making sure the team doesn't collapse and that's quite exciting.
#1 If everything else is changing in the team, the reset button should be pressed completely
The fact that DC have even considered such a change means that it's one of the options in their PowerPoint presentation on improving the side's fortunes. So, instead of risking another season out of the playoffs, this could be the perfect time for DC to take the punt (no pun intended) on a new leader.
A lot has already changed at the team in the lead-up to the IPL 2025.
For starters, for the next two years, the team won't be controlled by co-owners JSW Group but by the other co-owners, the GMR Group. Under the latter, Hemang Badani and Venugopal Rao have taken up the roles of Head Coach and Director of Cricket, replacing Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly.
One of the reasons for making such a big change could be the fact that there's a mega auction coming up. All teams can only retain a small number of their players, which would mean this would be the only auction in three years with hundreds of quality players, and a dozen captaincy options, available on the market.
When the leadership and coaching staff have changed, the team can stomp that reset button by finding a new leader to relieve Pant. It might not be immediately successful like Hardik Pandya with the Gujarat Titans but perhaps a bit like KKR with Shreyas, DC can build towards big success in the second and third years.
Holding onto Pant as captain would leave some elements of that struggling, slightly confused DC in the strainer. Bringing someone new could free him up, allow Badani and Rao to work with a new name, who hopefully won't have any baggage and build an identity that represents a new, consistent DC.