IPL 2021: Delhi Capitals replace Shreyas Iyer with Anirudha Joshi; Shams Mulani named Axar Patel's short-term replacement

Delhi Capitals have signed Anirudha Joshi as a replacement for their regular skipper Shreyas Iyer for the ongoing 14th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL). Iyer had sustained a shoulder injury during the five-match T20I series against England. He also underwent surgery for the same and since then has been sidelined from the action. DC then named Rishabh Pant as their captain for the season.

Ahead of the tournament, DC all-rounder Axar Patel tested positive for COVID-19. According to the BCCI protocols, a player contracting the disease has to under 10-day isolation and return two negative tests on the last two days. He also has to go through the cardiac test to go through his fitness.

Axar didn’t feature in the first two matches for DC and it seems that he won’t be available for a few more matches as the franchise has signed Shams Mulani as the short-term replacement. Only until Axar recovers, Mulani will be with the team.

“Mulani, a left-handed batsman and a slow left-arm orthodox bowler from Mumbai comes in as a replacement under IPL’s Player Regulations. Under the Regulation 6.1 (c), franchises are allowed to sign a short-term replacement player until the original squad member is permitted to re-enter the team’s bio-secure environment. Hence, Mulani will only be a part of the Delhi Capitals side until Axar recovers and is allowed to join the team,” the IPL release read.

Shams Mulani has featured in 25 T20s for Mumbai picking 24 wickets so far and DC is his first IPL. The 24-year-old is a decent batsman too having mustered 91 runs in the shortest format. Mulani has also played 10 first-class and 30 List-A matches in his career thus far.

Anirudha Joshi has been part of RCB and RR before

As for Anirudha Joshi, he plays for Karnataka in the domestic circuit and is a middle-order batsman apart from being a handy off-spinner. Anirudha has played 17 List A matches and 22 T20s in his career scoring 211 and 420 runs respectively and has also picked six wickets in each format.