Team India all-rounder Axar Patel has been named the skipper of Delhi Capitals for the upcoming IPL 2025 season. With Rishabh Pant signed by Lucknow Super Giants, Patel was handed the opportunity to lead the team despite the presence of KL Rahul and Faf du Plessis.
He has been with DC since 2019 and was their top retention for ₹16.50 crore ahead of the mega auction last November. While his captaincy experience isn’t extensive, he was named India’s T20I vice-captain in January this year.
Axar Patel’s Leadership experience
Axar enters this IPL season in good form, having played a crucial role in India’s Champions Trophy 2025 victory. In the tournament, he took five wickets at an impressive economy rate of 4.35 and made valuable contributions while batting at No. 5.
The 31-year-old, has prior leadership experience, having captained Gujarat in 23 matches across formats, including the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy in the 2024-25 season. He also got a brief taste of captaincy in the IPL 2024, when he led Delhi Capitals (DC) in one crucial match against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). Unfortunately, DC lost that must-win game, which resulted in their elimination from the playoff race. This opportunity arose when Rishabh Pant was suspended due to a slow over-rate.
With Pant no longer part of the DC squad following the IPL 2025 mega auction, Axar is now the franchise’s most experienced playerhaving played 82 matches across six seasons. In IPL 2024, he scored 235 runs at an average of nearly 30 and picked up 11 wickets at an economy rate of 7.65.
Delhi Capitals Squad
KL Rahul, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Karun Nair, Faf du Plessis, Donovan Ferreira, Abhishek Porel, Tristan Stubbs, Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Darshan Nalkande, Vipraj Nigam, Ajay Mandal, Manwant Kumar, Tripurana Vijay, Madhav Tiwari, Axar Patel, Mitchell Starc, T Natarajan, Mohit Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Dushmantha Chameera and Kuldeep Yadav.
