A lot goes into building a team from scratch, especially in ultra-competitive environments like Indian Premier league (IPl). All the bases need to be covered. Players with caliber, potential and match-winning abilities need to be acquired. A combination needs to be forged, and most importantly, retained. And last, but not least, abundance of patience is required. In that sense, Delhi Daredevils are really a ‘daring’ lot who’ve shown audacity to start from scratch twice in two years.
In 2013, ahead of the seventh IPl season, they released all the players who were part of a disastrous IPl-6. They also brought in Gary Kirsten as their coach. Still, they finished at the bottom of the table. Desperate for success, Daredevils management again offloaded 13 players from their last year’s squad that could only manage two wins in 14 matches. That means the Daredevils will once again have to start afresh and look for the combinations that can win them matches. In the fast-paced environment of Twenty20 league cricket it can get really difficult to zero-in on the winning combination as the franchises get only about a week before the season begins.
“…we were pretty bad in lot of areas last year. So this season we wanted to rectify that,” said JP Duminy during his first interaction as Delhi Daredevils captain at the Palam cricket ground here on Friday in an attempt to justify the team management’s decision. “…we have to see how we go first up. I guess it’s a bit of a disadvantage to try to find the combination that will work for us. A lot of teams are quite settled in the way they play their cricket, the structure by which they go about their game. So we need to identify (our combinations) pretty soon,” he added.
In the short history of IPl, it has been observed that settled teams perform better than the teams which keep changing their squads. As for DD, the strategy of off-loading players en masse didn’t work last time. They have again showed the guts to follow the similar strategy. Whether it will work or not will only be known after the season but ahead of it, Duminy — Daredevils’ best performer last season — wants to look at the brighter side of working with new players.
“New players, new team, new energy, (we also have) a lot of young players and they bring a lot of energy to the team. I am very excited by the caliber of players that we have this season. “…it’s about rebuilding the culture, identifying who would the senior player within the side. It would be crucial for them to partner up alongside me and make sure that we look after our team culture. It’s a big season for us and we have got a statement to make.,” Duminy said.