IPL 10 Delhi Daredevils (DD) 2017 Team, Squad, Players, Captain, History, Owners
Delhi Daredevils is Delhi’s team which is owned by the GMR group. For a long time we saw Akshay Kumar as the brand ambassador of the team. Often known as DD, the team is one of the eight founding teams that have been around since 2008 – the first IPL match. The home ground of the team is Feroz Shah Kotla ground at Delhi but Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur is also recognized as one of their grounds.
Team brand ambassadors
Once upon a time this team was mistakenly known to be owned by Akshay Kumar who was the brand ambassador in 2008. However due to his busy schedule the actor could no longer endorse the team in 2009. He was seen cheering the team in a couple of instances, though. Therefore he is closely associated with the team’s public image.
The team has an anthem called “Khel Front Foot Pe” which means “play aggressively.” This song has been composed by Kailash Kher. It is played during every match that is held in Feroz Shah Kotla or anyways. However, recently, in 2012 they got a new song called “Munday Dilli Ke” which was launched on YouTube. The song was catching on but then again in 2016 the team changed its song and released a new one sung by Sukhwinder Singh, titled “Dhuandarr Dilli.”
Performance and history
The team has shown pretty consistent performance. However, they have won the IPL lesser times than their competitors. Glenn McGrath who was in the team in 2009 expressed his angst upon not being picked for any match during the first season. He has stopped playing with the team since then. During the first season Gautam Gambhir was the team captain and he managed to tackle the team to finals.
In the year 2012 the team again came back with a bang. In the year 2011 there is nothing worth mentioning that the team achieved. But in 2012 they got some good players including Ross Taylor, Kevin Pietersen and Mahela Jayawardene. So they made waves during this season. However, this is also the season when Sehwag stepped down. So the team had to deal with a setback of some sort.
Even in the year 2014 the team did not perform well, although they announced that they will completely change their team. Yes, they did not retain any players. By this time, the fans were starting to lose faith in the team because they had not won a single IPL.
Then came the year 2015 during which they were heavily bashed for not performing too well. This was their worst year in the history of IPL because they were second last, losing the last position only to Kings XI Punjab. This was also the year when they had bought Yuvraj Singh. This was the team’s highest amount (Rs. 16 crores) in purchase.
2016 was equally unfortunate for Delhi Daredevils because they had to release a lot of its players during this year also. This was also the year they got some good players like Angelo Mathews and Pawan Negi. They still could not qualify for the finals – they kept losing. However, they just lost by 1 run against Gujarat Lions. They also managed to bag two wings against Sunrisers Hyderabad. Hence, fans were happy with their performance.