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Delhi Capitals have packed their kit away again, finishing sixth and wondering – yet again – how it slipped. Five seasons outside the play-offs is a habit no one at the franchise wants, yet the pattern rolled on, even with Hemang Badani calling the tactical shots and Axar Patel wearing the armband for a second year.
Key facts first. Two wins from the opening two matches suggested genuine momentum, but only 14 points were banked in the end. The bowling unit collected just 64 wickets, joint-lowest in the league. Mitchell Starc, the big overseas buy, missed nine of the 14 games through injury; when he did play he still managed 11 wickets at 20.36. The final three fixtures were won, but by then qualification maths had already turned ugly.
Badani did not hide from any of that. “There were many games where I genuinely felt that the game could go either way and we didn’t seize those moments,” he told reporters after Sunday’s 40-run win over Kolkata Knight Riders. “One being the Gujarat [Titans] game, we lost the game there by one run. The [failure to defend] 264 [against Punjab Kings] is again something that you would try and seize or try to defend that score. With CSK, we dropped some catches, and with SRH, we dropped some catches in the crucial time of the game.”
Those slips, he argued, fed into the more obvious numbers. “You ideally want to keep taking wickets and keep putting pressure on the opposition,” he said. And on Starc: “Starc is obviously somebody who’s done exceedingly well in all formats and him not being available to us the first nine games does hamper our progress. But I think, on the whole, even without him, we had our moments. Even without him, we had our chances to qualify. Starc does make a huge difference. But I think, as a side, I genuinely feel that if we had played those small margins… it’s a game of small margins. Literally, very small margins.”
Axar’s reading matched his coach’s, though the skipper tried to accentuate what progress there was. “We were not playing well, but we kept fighting,” he said on the host broadcaster straight after the KKR game. “The way we played the last three games… very good effort till the last match.” Earlier in the week he had explained the balancing act of leading while still trying to improve personal output: “You need to take care of everyone, but it’s most important to be in a good frame of mind yourself.”
His own returns underline the point. With the bat he averaged under 20, lower than the franchise would hope from a senior all-rounder, and his left-arm spin fetched wickets but leaked runs at key times. Kuldeep Yadav, player of the tournament talk only two seasons ago, finished with eight wickets all season – Ambati Rayudu asked on television, “DC should have been pushing for the title, so what went wrong for Kuldeep this season?” Mark Boucher on the same panel felt rhythm deserted the wrist-spinner early and never truly returned.
So where next? A quick glance at the data suggests wicket-taking power playovers and death-over composure have to improve. Some of that may come simply from having Starc available for more than half a campaign, but Badani hinted strongly at auction work around another fast-bowling option and a middle-order finisher.
Equally, those “small margins” Badani kept circling back to often live in the field: three dropped chances in the CSK defeat, two in the SRH loss, a missed run-out against Gujarat. Plug even half of those gaps and the ladder looks different. That, at least, is the internal argument.
For now the players scatter to national duty or a short rest. The franchise office will hold its usual post-mortem, and the mantra about learning from mistakes will be repeated. Whether the lessons finally stick in 2027 is the question that follows every Delhi season at present – politely asked, rarely answered.
