IPL 2021: Delhi Capitals to continue with Shreyas Iyer as captain, Smith given mentor’s role

IPL 2021 – Delhi Capitals Captain: Delhi Capitals have announced that they will continue with Shreyas Iyer as the captain even after the arrival of Steve Smith in the team. “We backed Shreyas when we promoted him to be the captain. Under him, the team came third in 2019 and reach the final in 2020. He is growing as a leader. I am sure the team will continue to do well under his leadership,” DC CEO Col. Vinod Bisht said, reported Times of India.

Iyer took over as DC skipper in 2018 after former Indian batsman Gautam Gambhir stepped down mid-way of the season. But what happens to Steve Smith?

Smith is a proven leader. During his captaincy tenure with Australia, the Men Down Under reached great heights. To further add to his repertoire, Smith took over Pune Rising Supergiants captaincy from MS Dhoni and led the now-defunct side to their maiden IPL final where they lost to Mumbai Indians in a close-encounter.

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However, DC have already picked a role for the former Rajasthan Royals captain.

IPL 2021: Steve Smith’s role in Delhi Capitals

Capitals declared that Smith, given his experience, will play the role of a mentor. “Any of the seniors who come in, be it (Ajinkya) Rahane, (Ravichandran) Ashwin or Smith, they have a lot of knowledge to impart to the young camp. We expect all the seniors will continue to do so including Steve Smith,” Bisht said as DC launched their new jersey.

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The IPL 2020 finalist has invested heavily in youth over the last five years. “We had a young team which has been groomed for the 3-4 years. Nw they have flowered. If the youngsters continue to do well, we will look to have them with the two new teams coming in next year,” Bisht added.

He also informed that DC’s approach in this year’s auction was to have a well-rounded bowling attack since the venues are undecided. “There was a lot of uncertainty. Idea is to have a balanced squad.”

IPL 2021: Delhi Capitals squad

Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant, Shreyas Iyer, Axar Patel, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, R Ashwin, Lalit Yadav, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Pravin Dubey, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Marcus Stoinis, Shimron Hetmyer, Chris Woakes, Daniel Sams, Steve Smith, Umesh Yadav, Ripal Patel, Vishnu Vinod, Lukman Meriwala, M Siddharth, Tom Curran, Sam Billings

Here’s their full schedule for IPL 2021: