For the 2025 IPL season, Faf du Plessis will serve as Axar Patel’s second-in-command for Delhi Capitals (DC).
Du Plessis, who used to lead the team at Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) until IPL 2024 concluded, was let go by the franchise prior to the mega auction in the previous year. He was then picked up by DC for his base price of INR 2 crore (US$0.24 million). Notably, he was preferred over KL Rahul, another ex-IPL captain who joined DC this season.
Former South Africa captain in all formats, Du Plessis was first brought on board by Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in 2012 for the IPL. He remained with the team until the end of the 2015 season before moving to Rising Pune Supergiant/s for two seasons during CSK’s ban from the league.
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In 2021, he returned to CSK and stayed with them until the following year when he was bought by RCB at the auction. Taking over as captain from Virat Kohli, who stepped down ahead of that season, Du Plessis led RCB for three years. Despite reaching the playoffs in both 2022 and 2024, the team is still in pursuit of their first IPL trophy after 17 seasons.
In the IPL, du Plessis, who is 40 years old, has achieved a total of 4571 runs in 145 matches with an average of 35.99 and a strike rate of 136.37. He continues to play for various franchise teams and most recently played for Joburg Super Kings in SA20 earlier this year. His skills are highly valued and it is likely that he will receive offers from teams joining the upcoming season of the Hundred. In fact, there are talks of Southern Brave, now owned by GMR Group (which also owns DC), negotiating a deal to bring him onto their team.
In an effort to change their record of never winning the IPL, DC has made significant changes to their team. This includes replacing Ricky Ponting and others in their coaching staff with Hemang Badani as head coach, Matthew Mott as assistant coach, Kevin Pietersen as team mentor, and Munaf Patel, Venugopal Rao, and Vijay Bharadwaj in positions of authority.
Additionally, Axar’s promotion to a leadership role was part of this restructuring, as Rishabh Pant (their previous captain) went back into the auction and was eventually selected by Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), where he currently serves as captain. Rahul led LSG last season.
