IPL 2025: Munaf Patel, Venugopal Rao may join DC coaching staff

The franchise had parted ways with Ricky Ponting in July this year after being at the helm since 2018

New Delhi: Former India cricketers Hemang Badani, Munaf Patel and Venugopal Rao are likely to join the Delhi Capitals‘ coaching staff for the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The franchise had parted ways with Ricky Ponting in July this year after being at the helm since 2018. Under him, the Delhi Capitals’ secured a runners-up finish in IPL 2020, while reaching playoffs in 2019 and 2021 seasons.

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Ponting has now moved on to be head coach of Punjab Kings. Various sources said that the Delhi Capitals’ are moving towards appointing an all-Indian coaching staff for the IPL.

Badani is likely to become the team’s new chief coach, while Venugopal could be appointed as the side’s director of cricket and Munaf may take charge as the bowling coach. At the same time, there has been no word yet on future of other support staff members, including Sourav Ganguly, who has been the franchise’s director of cricket since 2022.

Venugopal played 16 ODIs for India and represented three sides in the IPL, including Delhi Capitals. On the other hand, Badani featured for India in four Tests and 40 ODIs. Badani has an impressive coaching resume coaching Chepauk Super Gillies to winning the Tamil Nadu Premier League (TNPL) four times, emerging triumphant as a coaching staff member of the Jaffna-based franchise in the Lanka Premier League (LPL) and winning the inaugural SA20 title with Sunrisers Eastern Cape as a batting coach.

Badani also served as the fielding coach and scout for Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL from 2021 to 2023. Munaf, meanwhile, played 13 Tests and 70 ODIs for India, and was a member of the 2011 ODI World Cup winning team on home soil. Recently, Munaf was a Delhi Capitals scout on behalf of the GMR Group in the second season of the UP T20 League in Lucknow.

Badani and Venugopal, who also holds Director of Cricket position at GMR Sports, have been previously involved with the franchise’s other teams in the global T20 league circuit — for Dubai Capitals in the ILT20 in UAE and Seattle Orcas in the Major League Cricket (MLC) in the USA.

A co-incidence to note is that these two teams are owned by Kiran Kumar Grandhi, the head of the GMR Group, who are Delhi Capitals co-owners alongside JSW. With regards to player retention strategy, Delhi Capitals’ are likely to retain Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav.

A word on them retaining the team’s young overseas performers Fraser-McGurk and Tristan Stubbs is yet to come. All ten teams have time till October 31 to finalise their retentions ahead of IPL 2025 mega auction, whose dates and venue are yet to be confirmed.