With less than a month away for the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) to kickstart, Delhi Capitals have been dealt with a massive blow with skipper Shreyas Iyer dislocating his shoulder. After being ruled out of the ODI series against England, the dashing batsman is likely to miss the first half of IPL 2021 which starts from April 9 and will run until May 30.
This injury looked severe and critical right from the onset. While BCCI is yet to make any official announcement, reports suggest that Shreyas Iyer has dislocated his shoulder and has been ruled out of the ODI series against England. He will not able to play for 8 weeks which in result means that Delhi Capitals will be going to miss the services of captain in the upcoming season.
On that note, let us take a look at players who can lead the Delhi Capitals in the absence of Shreyas Iyer in IPL 2021:
Steve Smith
Hardly there will be anyone to disagree that Steve Smith is one of the most complete cricketers across the formats. He has performed both as a batsman and leadership duties for the respective teams he has played for in his career. In the absence of Shreyas Iyer, there will be no player than himself Steve Smith to lead Delhi Capitals.
Steve Smith has great numbers as the captain which backs his case over others in the race to captain. For Rajasthan Royals, Steve Smith has captained on 27 occasions and emerge out victorious 15 times followed by 10 wins out of 15 games for now-defunct Rising Pune Supergiant in 2017 where they ended as runners-up.
Delhi Capitals will eventually benefit if they hand over the reins to the former Aussie skipper in the absence of their regular skipper.
Rishabh Pant
The second player who is in the race to replace Shreyas Iyer is without a shadow of a doubt is Rishabh Pant. The left-handed dashing batsman has already into the limelight for his whirlwind batting for which he has won many accolades.
Still into the early phase of his career but it will be great time to test Pant’s captaincy abilities in the shortest format of the game. In his IPL career so far, Pant has scored 2079 in 68 games at an average of 35.23 along with the strike rate of 151.97 and many match-winning knocks under his name which made the audience went crazy. While Pant is not a tested customer when it comes to leading a side, but it will be the best time to bestow him with the responsibility.
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Ravichandran Ashwin
Another great option who can replace Shreyas Iyer over others is definitely Ravichandran Ashwin. Hardly people know that he is an engineer first before turned into a cricketer. As a captain, he has good numbers over others in the race while being the captain for Kings XI Punjab winning 12 games out of 28 games.
He recently returned to test cricket after long break where he has helped team India to win the Test series against Australia and England. While the debates continue to flow about his return to T20I cricket, Ashwin has continued to perform well in IPL. With experience under his belt, Ashwin has higher chances to captain Delhi Capitals in the upcoming season in the absence of regular skipper Shreyas Iyer.