Delhi Capitals squad
Delhi Capitals squad. Image Credits: Twitter

IPL 2023: India Premier League (IPL) 2023 will kick off on 31st March 2023, with the opening match between defending champions Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings (CSK). Delhi Capitals (DC) will be missing their last edition skipper Rishabh Pant services in the 16th edition of IPL. DC in a recent announcement appointed David Warner as their captain for the upcoming season.

Aakash Chopra felt that David Warner was the obvious choice in Pant’s absence but he thinks that Warner is still a force in limited-overs cricket for any side.

Delhi Capitals. Aakash Chopra
Delhi Capitals squad. Image Credits: Twitter

Chopra in his recent video said that he is still unsure about Warner’s form after his disastrous India tour-

“You will now see David Warner as the captain for the Delhi Capitals, which was almost a given, because if you don’t have Rishabh Pant and Shreyas Iyer left long back, there was no other captaincy candidate left in this team, to be very honest,” said former Indian opener.

Australian opener David Warner returned home after getting injured in the second test match, he was later ruled out of the series. The southpaw scored 1 & 10 runs in the Nagpur test match and in Delhi, the 36-year-old found the nick off Mohammed Shami’s delivery and was dismissed for 15 runs.

“Warner has already captained earlier in this league. He captained very well initially but was removed from captaincy in the end. He left the Hyderabad franchise and moved towards Delhi,” he further added.

Warner got appointed as Sunrises Hyderabad (SRH) in the 2015 season, he led Sunrises to their only title victory in the 15th edition of IPL in the 2016 edition. The 36-year-old was sacked from his captaincy role in 2021 and dropped from playing XI in the same season, he moved to DC in the last edition to play in the IPL.

“It seems he is at the twilight of his career. His place in Tests is slightly 50-50 but he is still a force in white-ball cricket, so nobody is going to touch him. But we really don’t know how much of his best is still ahead of him. He is still a gun player and will be leading the Delhi franchise,” said Chopra.

Delhi-based club in their recent announcement appointed the Australian veteran as captain for the IPL 16 and Axar Patel as his deputy for the full season. Patel has performed exceptionally well in the ongoing Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) and is currently in the second spot on the leading run-scorer list. The left-arm spinner has scored 158 runs in two innings, in BGT 2023 he is currently behind top-positioned Rohit Sharma in the top scorer list.

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