Hemang Badani appointed as head coach Delhi Capitals head coach, Venugopal Rao to serve as team's Director of Cricket

IPL franchise Delhi Capitals will be head coached by Hemang Badani with erstwhile player of the franchise from 2011 to 2013 (then Delhi Daredevils), Venugopal Rao, will serve as Director of Cricket. The support staff, which will be shepherded by the two former India cricketers, have been provided a contract for the next couple of Indian Premier League seasons. 

The two have previously played together for MRF in the Chennai League. They have been involved with the franchise's subsidiaries as well (Dubai Capitals in the ILT20 and Seattle Orcas in the MLC). They are widely associated for their robust collaboration and mutual rapport, which is believed to be one of the main reasons for the management to go ahead with selecting the aforementioned people.

The management, according to Cricbuzz, believes that Badani and Rao are worthy enough to be able to take the Capitals to new heights and fill in the boots of Ricky Ponting, who was the franchise's head coach for the past seven seasons before stepping down post the 17th edition of the IPL. 

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It is also supposed that the higher-ups have made a conscious decision of not going ahead with prominent names to not burden the coaching staff and players alike while having a lowkey presence in the media. While Badani has played for the nation in four Tests and 40 ODIs, Rao has only played 16 ODIs for India. While Badani has represented the Chennai Super Kings for only one season, Rao has featured for the Deccan Chargers and the Sunrisers Hyderabad apart from his stint with the Delhi-based franchise. 

Pant's future with franchise uncertain

Meanwhile, ace wicketkeeper-batter, Rishabh Pant, who has played for the Capitals ever since making his debut in the cash-rich league in 2016, recently put out a tweet on X which stirred up quite a lot of mayhem within the cricketing community on his future with the franchise.

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With October 31 being the deadline set for the franchises to finalize their retentions, it remains to be seen what the management's stance on their skipper will be. There are reports that Pant is going nowhere, but it cannot be said for sure whether that will be the eventuality.