Delhi Daredevils finished sixth in the 10th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) and going into the auctions later this month, the franchise has chosen to retain three players from the 2017 squad.
In the teams’ retention announcement in Mumbai on Thursday, 4 January, Delhi announced that Chris Morris, Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer will be the three players who will be carried forward into the new season.
Australia’s World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting has been appointed the new coach of the team.
Since failing to qualify for the play-offs once again last season, Delhi have lost skipper Zaheer Khan who has hung up his cricketing boots since. Coach Rahul Dravid too has elected to end all ties with the IPL to avoid any conflict of interest allegations in the future.
Risbhabh Pant was picked as the team’s top choice and now stands to earn as much as Rs 15 crore for a season in the IPL, with the league fixing the salary cap of the retained players at Rs 15 crore, Rs 11 crore, and Rs 7 crore respectively.
Speaking at the event in Mumbai, Delhi Daredevil’s spokesperson said Morris was “one of the most disruptive all rounders globally.”
Lacking any big names in the batting order, IPL 2017 was a great opportunity for both Shreyas Iyer and Rishabh Pant to step up, and they did, finishing as the team’s second and third-highest scorers of the season. Pant scored 366 in 14 outings, Iyer picked up 338 in 12 games.
Chris Morris played a total of nine games for Delhi in the 2017 season of the IPL, picking up 12 wickets.
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