The most underachieving IPL franchise, Delhi Daredevils (DD) this year will be hoping to finally get their hands on the coveted Trophy. The Auction 2018 was a huge success for them as they DD team management has selected a super talented squad. Gautam Gambhir’s return as the skipper will boost their confidence further. However, there are still certain players from the past years whose performance and presence will be surely be missed in the IPL 2018 by the DD management.

In the IPL 2012 edition, the Daredevils team reached its peak as they topped the group table. With the star-studded players like Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene, Ross Taylor and the Purple cap holder Morne Morkel, they were a strong unit. Unfortunately, they lost both their qualifier and eliminator to get axed from the tournament. Even, in 2017 they had a decent pool of cricketers they couldn’t manage to come together in order to take their team to the glory.

Also read: Delhi Darvedevils – The Ultimate Underachievers

Moreover, in 2018 auctions DD has included some proven matchwinners like Glenn Maxwell, Colin Munro, Daniel Christian, Jason Roy, but all these are foreign cricketers so they will surely be missing Indian players in the upcoming edition of the tournament. Players like Sam Billings, Karun Nair, Pat Cummins, Quinton de Kock, Sanju Samson have played a crucial role in winning a certain amount of matches for the Delhi Daredevils in the last couple of season and there is no doubt about the fact that their contributions were truly match-winning for DD. 

While, Billings, Nair, and De Kock used to provide a good start to the innings in most of the matches of the Delhi based franchise, Samson uses to play a role of a sheet anchor in Delhi middle-order. Cummins was the one who uses to run through the opposition batting line-up but in 2018, Billings will play for Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Nair for Kings XI Punjab (KXIP), Cummins for Mumbai Indians (MI), Samson for Rajasthan Royals (RR), and De Kock for Royals Challengers Bangalore (RCB).

With Shami’s inclusion in the IPL will be doubtful as he is under the scanner of various series charges levied by his wife. This development may harm Daredevils who do not have any backup in Indian pace bowers department. Delhi, this year, is full of explosive batsmen in their ranks. will be a part of the core batting for Daredevils. Their chances of success are as explosive as they bat, Delhi will have to be careful.

Also read: Gautam Gambhir Reveals The Vision Of Delhi Daredevils

Now, the questions arise is whether the DD team management has been successful in finding apt replacements of these missing cogs from the team and the answer to that will be, yes up to some extent they have found the replacements. Let’s have a look at it:

Sam Billings – Jason Roy

Karun Nair – Gautam Gambhir

Pat Cummins – Trent Boult

Quinton de Kock – Colin Munro

Sanju Samson – Prithvi Shaw

Delhi Daredevils IPL 2018 squad: 

Gautam Gambhir (c), Rishabh Pant, Chris Morris, Shreyas Iyer, Glenn Maxwell, Kagiso Rabada, Amit Mishra, Shahbaz Nadeem, Vijay Shankar, Rahul Tewatia, Mohammad Shami, Trent Boult, Colin Munro, Daniel Christian, Jason Roy, Naman Ojha, Prithvi Shaw, Gurkeerat Singh Mann, Avesh Khan, Abhishek Sharma, Jayant Yadav, Harshal Patel, Manjot Kalra, Sandeep Lamichhane, Sayan Ghosh