Delhi Capitals Appoint Kevin Pietersen as Mentor For IPL 2025

In what comes as a significant development, Delhi Capitals (DC) have added to their backroom staff further and have appointed former England captain Kevin Pietersen as mentor for the 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

Pietersen, a former Delhi Capitals player, played 23 games for the franchise and even led them in the 2014 edition of the IPL. The 44-year-old has spent the last few years commentating in the IPL, but he’ll now be joining Hemang Badani (head coach), Matthew Mott (assistant coach) and Munaf Patel (bowling coach) at the Capitals. 

DC are vying to win their first-ever IPL title, having come agonisingly close in IPL 2020, where they reached the final but were outclassed by Mumbai Indians.

DC have done a hard reset ahead of IPL 2025, having parted ways with both Ricky Ponting (head coach) and Rishabh Pant (captain), both of whom were at the franchise for close to a decade. The decision came after the franchise failed to reach the playoffs in the 2024 edition, finishing sixth.

They are yet to announce their new captain, but it is widely reported that Axar Patel will be the new captain of DC, despite the franchise purchasing KL Rahul at the mega auction.

DC SQUAD FOR IPL 2025

Batters - Tristan Stubbs, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Harry Brook, Ashutosh Sharma, Faf du Plessis, Sameer Rizvi, Karun Nair

Fast-bowling all-rounders - Manvanth Kumar, Madhav Tiwari

Spin-bowling all-rounders - Ajay Mandal, Axar Patel, Tripurna Vijay

Wicketkeepers - KL Rahul, Abhishek Porel, Donovon Ferreira

Pacers - Mitchell Starc, T Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar, Mohit Sharma, Dushmantha Chameera, Darshan Nalkande

Spinners - Kuldeep Yadav, Vipraj Nigam

DC PREDICTED PLAYING XI

KL Rahul, Jake Fraser-McGurk, Abishek Porel (wk), Harry Brook, Tristan Stubbs, Axar Patel, Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Mitchell Starc, Kuldeep Yadav, Mukesh Kumar