Sourav Ganguly to join Delhi Capitals as Director of Cricket

Former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly will be returning to the IPL as Director of Cricket with the Delhi Capitals in the upcoming edition

New Delhi: Former BCCI president Sourav Ganguly will be returning to the IPL as Director of Cricket with the Delhi Capitals in the upcoming edition, sources close to the development said on Tuesday.

The former India captain, who stepped down from the BCCI president’s post in October, will also oversee all the cricket verticals of the franchise along with the ILT20 team Dubai Capitals and the SA T20 league side Pretoria Capitals.

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“Yes, Sourav will be back with Delhi Capitals from this year. The discussions and modalities are over. He has worked with the franchise, shares a good comfort level with owners and if he would have worked in IPL, it would have always been with DC,” an IPL source tracking the developments said on the condition of anonymity.

It couldn’t be confirmed whether Ganguly will have any minority stake in the franchise co-owned by GMR and JSW groups. Ganguly was the mentor of Delhi Capitals during his stint with the franchise in 2019. It is understood that Delhi Capitals’ recent auction picks had both head coach Ricky Ponting and Ganguly’s footprints.

The IPL franchise owners, with their diversification, are now looking at global roles for all big names who are associated with the respective franchises. “If you look at Gautam Gambhir with Lucknow Super Giants and Durban Super Giants and Mahela Jayawardena with MI Emirates and MI Cape Town along with Mumbai Indians, the roles are becoming diverse as in foreign leagues, you aren’t often dealing with same set of players,” the IPL source added.

Ganguly and Ponting are two of the sharpest cricket brains but it will be interesting to see how the two collaborate in bringing about optimum performance from Delhi Capitals in the IPL. It will be a big challenge for both Ponting and Ganguly with regular skipper Rishabh Pant all but out of IPL after his horrifying car accident last week.

Pant the skipper is replaceable but Pant the batter-keeper remains one of the biggest game-changers despite his underwhelming T20 performance. In fact, Delhi Capitals had released Kona Bharat, who was picked at the last auction by Gujarat Titans.

None of the top line Indian white-ball wicket-keepers are available, with Sanju Samson (Rajasthan Royals), Ishan Kishan (MI), Wriddhiman Saha (GT), Upendra Yadav (SRH), KL Rahul (LSG) being already taken by one franchise or the other. As of now, the only other available skipper in the squad is Englishman Phil Salt.