IPL: Top 5 purchases made by the Delhi Daredevils over the years
The Delhi Daredevils, now rechristened as the Delhi Capitals, have been the perennial under-achievers of the IPL. They are one of very few teams that have still not made it to the final, and this is despite the fact that they have had some of the greatest players of the game in their line up.
During the 2008 season, Delhi had the likes of Virender Shewag, Gautam Gambhir, AB de Villiers and Glenn Mcgrath in their team, but still failed to make it to the semi finals. The 2009 season was a mini-success, as Delhi topped the points table, but they were undone by a masterclass from Adam Gilchrist in the semi-finals.
During the 2012 season, a well balanced squad helped Delhi clinch the top spot in the points table. But some poor decisions by the team management in the qualifiers derailed their campaign.
Delhi finished at the bottom of the table in 2013 and 2014. The rest of the campaigns were also not of much joy for the Daredevils.
Their team management has made some questionable decisions at the previous auctions. They paid a huge amount of 12.5 crore for Dinesh Karthik in 2014, while the relatively unknown Pawan Negi was acquired for a massive amount of 8.5 crore in 2016. Both the players failed to justify their price tags.
However, Delhi have also made some intelligent buys over the years in the form of David Warner, Chris Morris and Quinton de Kock. Let us take a look at the top 5 buys by Delhi in their IPL history.
5. Shreyas Iyer
Shreyas Iyer has been with the Delhi Daredevils for quite some time now. He was signed in 2015 for an amount of 2.6 crore INR, which was a big amount for an uncapped player.
Iyer has justified his price tag over the years with some fine knocks for Delhi. He announced himself on the big stage in stunning fashion, accumulating 439 runs during the inaugural season with four 50s to his name. He was named as the emerging player of the tournament during 2015.
Iyer was very disappointing during the next season, making just 30 runs from 6 outings. Bit his performances improved during the 2017 and 2018 seasons.
The team management was so impressed with his calm head that they named him captain in the middle of the 2018 season. From a rookie to the youngest captain in the league, Iyer has come really far in a very short span of time.