Amidst a sense of excitement around IPL teams’ retentions, it has emerged that DC have decided to keep skipper Rishabh Pant, opener Prithvi Shaw, lead spinner Axar Patel and speedster Anrich Nortje with them for the next year’s edition of the competition, reported ESPNcricinfo on November 26.
It is learnt that DC was looking to retain former captain Shreyas Iyer instead of Shaw, but Iyer has opted to go into the mega auction instead. Speculations were rife around such a move since the 26-year-old wasn’t reinstated to the captaincy post despite returning from an injury for the UAE leg of the IPL 2021.
Iyer had missed out of the Indian leg of the competition in April-May due after hurting his shoulder while fielding during the ODI series against England in late March. Now that he has decided to go into the auction, the chances are high that he and DC could part ways, and he will play for another side, potentially captaining it as well.
ESPNcricinfo reported, once Iyer himself walked out of discussions around retention, promising young opener Shaw became an obvious second choice. Shaw has been with the Delhi franchise since his debut season of IPL back in 2018 and has made 1,305 runs at a strike-rate of 146.30.
Shaw has pipped the more experienced Shikhar Dhawan in the retention list. DC batsman has been terrific with the bat for the franchise in the last two years but is approaching the deeper side of thirties, which is presumably what went against him.
The report from ESPNcricinfo mentioned, the Capitals think-tank had a “tougher time” finalising Axar and Nortje as their retentions. Nortje was directly contesting with his South African pace partner Kagiso Rabada for one spot.
2021 IPL campaign might have tilted the scales in Nortje’s favour where he was more of a four-over bank for the side and bowled well in the powerplay as well as the death.
While Rabada’s 15 wickets for the season came at an economy rate of 8.14 in what was a low-scoring tournament played in neutral venues in India and UAE, Nortje took his 12 wickets from eight games in the United Arabic Emirates while giving away only 6.16 runs per over.
Axar, on his part, has been extremely miserly for DC in the last two IPL seasons, taking 24 wickets from his 27 games in this period with an economy rate of only 6.52.
