Twelve months ago, Delhi Capitals were a franchise that had quietly made its peace with mediocrity. Fifth place in 2025 after a promising start that collapsed in the second half, a captain who had delivered stability without silverware, a batting order that lived and died by one man. This year, they added Pathum Nissanka, Ben Duckett, Kyle Jamieson, and Lungi Ngidi at the auction,
Mitchell Starc missed the first half of the season with a fitness issue, Kuldeep Yadav had arguably the worst extended run of his IPL career, and KL Rahul did something extraordinary: he walked out against Punjab Kings at the Arun Jaitley Stadium and scored an unbeaten 152 off 67 balls, the highest individual score ever made by an Indian batter in the history of the IPL.
It wasn’t enough. Delhi Capitals finished sixth in the league stage with seven wins and seven losses, and failed to qualify for the playoffs for the fifth consecutive season.
[sportzclaus_poll player=”AXAR PATEL” team=”DC” poll_id=”AXAR_dc_2026″]
That is the story of Delhi Capitals in 2026 in miniature: one player operating at the absolute peak of his powers, a supporting cast that largely couldn’t follow him there, and a structural problem around bowling depth that no single auction has yet solved. Which makes the decisions ahead of IPL 2027 feel more loaded than usual. This isn’t a squad that needs a total rebuild, but it absolutely needs more than what another quiet mini-auction can realistically provide.
Here’s a detailed breakdown of who’s likely to go, who’s staying, and what DC’s auction strategy could look like ahead of IPL 2027.
- Delhi Capitals (DC) IPL 2026 Campaign Overview
- High-Profile Players DC Are Likely to Release
- Kuldeep Yadav: ₹13.25 Crore
- Mitchell Starc: ₹11.75 Crore
- Ben Duckett: ₹2 Crore
- Kyle Jamieson: ₹2 Crore
- Nitish Rana, Karun Nair, Ajay Mandal, Tripurana Vijay, Madhav Tiwari, Dushmantha Chameera & Others: ₹30 Lakh – ₹4.2 Crore
- Delhi Capitals (DC) Retained Players List
- The Axar Patel Question
- DC Probable Retained & Released Players
- Purse Value and Auction Strategy for IPL 2027
Delhi Capitals (DC) IPL 2026 Campaign Overview
The season began with a complication before it had properly started. Mitchell Starc, retained at ₹11.75 crore and the cornerstone of DC’s pace attack, was unavailable for the first half of the tournament. That threw the bowling entirely off balance. Natarajan and Mukesh Kumar carried the load without their frontline overseas seamer, and the results showed. By the time Starc returned, Delhi had already dropped enough games to make a top-four finish a near impossibility.
Kuldeep Yadav, the franchise’s most expensive spinner and one of the most effective wrist-spinners in the game across formats, had what can generously be described as a difficult season. The wickets didn’t come at the rate DC needed, his economy ticked upward, and for stretches of the campaign, a franchise that had built its identity around his craft found itself relying on Axar Patel to do the heavy lifting in the middle overs alone.
And yet, through all of it, KL Rahul was exceptional. His 152* against Punjab Kings rewrote the record books, but it was the consistency underneath that number, 593 runs across the season, game after game of composed, high-quality batting, that underlined what Delhi had in him. The problem is that KL Rahul cannot bowl, take catches off his own bowling, or stop opponents from scoring at the other end. Delhi’s most standout individual performance in years happened inside a team that still finished sixth.
| Statistic | IPL 2026 Numbers |
|---|---|
| Matches Played (League) | 14 |
| Wins / Losses (League) | 7 / 7 |
| League Points | 14 |
| League Stage Finish | 6th |
| Playoff Results | Eliminated at the league stage |
| Final Position | 6th |
| Most Runs | KL Rahul (593) |
| Most Wickets | Lungi Ngidi (13) |
Lungi Ngidi, signed at ₹2 crore at the 2026 auction, ended as the team’s leading wicket-taker with 13 scalps. That number says something useful about how the season went: a player bought as a squad complement, not a primary weapon, finished as the franchise’s most prolific bowler. Delhi recovered late, winning three of their final games to end on seven wins, but the damage from a poor home record and a stretched bowling attack had already been done.
High-Profile Players DC Are Likely to Release
DC’s purse situation heading into IPL 2027 is one that demands decisions rather than just housekeeping. A handful of the 2026 squad were brought in to fill specific needs that never quite materialised, a couple of retained names at significant salaries had disappointing campaigns, and freeing up that cap space would give Hemang Badani’s group genuine room to address the bowling problem that has now persisted across multiple seasons.
Kuldeep Yadav: ₹13.25 Crore
This is the most difficult call on Delhi’s books, and there’s no clean answer. Kuldeep Yadav, at his best, is one of the finest spinners in T20 cricket. 21 wickets in IPL 2022 for this same franchise remain the benchmark for what he can deliver in purple. At his worst, which is closer to what IPL 2026 produced, he’s an expensive middle-overs option who costs runs without taking wickets, and ₹13.25 crore is a heavy price to pay for a spinner whose confidence appears to have wobbled.
[sportzclaus_poll player=”Kuldeep Yadav” team=”DC” poll_id=”AXAR_dc_2026″]
Should they retain or release?
At ₹13.25 crore, the figure is difficult to justify off the back of what was widely assessed as his worst extended IPL run. A release doesn’t rule out re-signing him at a fresh price in the mini-auction, but carrying that number into another season without concrete evidence of a return to form is a significant ask of any management group.
Mitchell Starc: ₹11.75 Crore
The case for Starc is clear: when fit and available, he remains one of the most destructive new-ball bowlers in world cricket, the man who delivered Player of the Match performances in both the Qualifier and the Final for KKR in 2024. The case against is equally straightforward: he missed the first half of IPL 2026, and the tournament interruption in 2025 had already cost DC his services mid-season then, too. Two consecutive seasons in which Starc has been either absent or disrupted is a pattern that the franchise’s management cannot simply overlook.
Should they retain or release?
At ₹11.75 crore for a bowler who has now been unavailable for significant portions of DC’s last two campaigns, the risk-reward calculation is getting harder to defend. Not every franchise can absorb the uncertainty that comes with an elite overseas pacer on Australian scheduling. The decision may ultimately depend on conversations about 2027 availability guarantees, but if those guarantees can’t be given, a release and a rebid make more sense than another season of planning around a half-empty fixture list.
Ben Duckett: ₹2 Crore
Duckett arrived with a solid white-ball pedigree from his England career and a reputation as an aggressive top-order option who could complement KL Rahul’s anchor role. As a ₹2 crore auction buy, the stakes were never enormous. But with Abhishek Porel occupying the top of the order as a left-hander, and Pathum Nissanka also signed for that function, DC found themselves with more options at the top than they had space for, and Duckett ended up squeezed out of regular contention.
Should they retain or release?
A release frees an overseas slot and a small but non-trivial portion of cap space. At ₹2 crore, the financial impact is modest; the squad-management logic is less so. DC cannot keep carrying overseas batters who aren’t regularly starting.
Kyle Jamieson: ₹2 Crore
Bought at the 2026 auction as a multi-format option who could provide seam-up variety and genuine batting depth down the order, Jamieson’s IPL stints have never quite translated his international quality into the format’s specific demands. He didn’t force his way into the XI consistently, and with Starc’s return midway through the season, his spot in the bowling rotation became even harder to justify.
Should they retain or release?
The overseas slot is the crux of it. DC used eight overseas slots in 2026 and still finished sixth. Quality over quantity is the obvious corrective, and Jamieson at ₹2 crore for limited impact doesn’t make that cut.
Nitish Rana, Karun Nair, Ajay Mandal, Tripurana Vijay, Madhav Tiwari, Dushmantha Chameera & Others: ₹30 Lakh – ₹4.2 Crore
This is the standard end-of-season squad attrition every franchise goes through. Nitish Rana at ₹4.2 crore never established himself as a reliable middle-order anchor. Karun Nair at ₹50 lakh, Dushmantha Chameera at ₹75 lakh, Ajay Mandal at ₹30 lakh, Tripurana Vijay at ₹30 lakh, and Madhav Tiwari at ₹40 lakh were squad fillers who rarely saw the XI. Individually, the numbers are small; collectively, clearing these names frees up a squad and some cap headroom worth having.
Delhi Capitals (DC) Retained Players List
The core is not in doubt. KL Rahul is the franchise’s best player by a considerable distance right now, and the 152* against Punjab Kings underlines that he’s in the form of his career. Axar Patel remains the captain and the glue of the middle order with ball and bat, even if his personal returns in 2026 were uneven.
Tristan Stubbs has established himself as the finisher DC needed for years. Abhishek Porel has the trust of the dressing room as the long-term wicketkeeper-batter option. T. Natarajan, Mukesh Kumar, Ashutosh Sharma, Sameer Rizvi, Vipraj Nigam, Lungi Ngidi, and Pathum Nissanka round out a retained core that gives the franchise a workable spine even with several big-money decisions to come.
- KL Rahul
- Axar Patel (C)
- Tristan Stubbs
- Abhishek Porel
- T. Natarajan
- Mukesh Kumar
- Ashutosh Sharma
- Sameer Rizvi
- Pathum Nissanka
- Lungi Ngidi
- Vipraj Nigam
- Auqib Nabi
- Prithvi Shaw
The Axar Patel Question
One name needs its own section, because the two roles Axar is being asked to fill are pulling in different directions. As captain, he’s been steady, calm under pressure, generally sensible with his bowling rotations, and widely credited with keeping a young dressing room together through a difficult run of five straight missed playoff campaigns. As a batter and bowler, IPL 2026 was a year where he was described in one season review as doing “only slightly better” than the misfiring Kuldeep Yadav.
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That’s the tension Delhi haven’t resolved. Axar Patel, the captain, is a reasonable asset for a franchise in transition. Axar Patel, the middle-order batter and spinner, is a problem at ₹16.5 crore. There are also reports circulating that the franchise may consider a captaincy change ahead of IPL 2027, the same review that flagged Kuldeep’s form noted that “the franchise may change their captain for the next season.”
None of that means the captaincy change is coming. But Delhi need a year in 2027 where Axar Patel’s personal contributions justify both his price and his armband, because a sixth consecutive missed playoff would force a harder conversation than any management currently wants to have.
DC Probable Retained & Released Players
| Player Name | Role | Price (INR) | Expected Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| KL Rahul | Batsman | ₹14.00 Crore | Retained |
| Axar Patel (C) | All-rounder (C) | ₹16.50 Crore | Retained |
| Tristan Stubbs | Batsman | ₹10.00 Crore | Retained |
| T. Natarajan | Bowler | ₹10.75 Crore | Retained |
| Abhishek Porel | Wicketkeeper | ₹4.00 Crore | Retained |
| Auqib Nabi | All-rounder | ₹8.40 Crore | Retained |
| Mukesh Kumar | Bowler | ₹8.00 Crore | Retained |
| Ashutosh Sharma | All-rounder | ₹3.80 Crore | Retained |
| Pathum Nissanka | Batsman | ₹4.00 Crore | Retained |
| Lungi Ngidi | Bowler | ₹2.00 Crore | Retained |
| Sameer Rizvi | Batsman | ₹95 Lakh | Retained |
| Vipraj Nigam | Bowler | ₹50 Lakh | Retained |
| Prithvi Shaw | Batsman | ₹75 Lakh | Retained |
| Kuldeep Yadav | Bowler | ₹13.25 Crore | Released |
| Mitchell Starc | Bowler | ₹11.75 Crore | Released |
| Ben Duckett | Batsman | ₹2.00 Crore | Released |
| Kyle Jamieson | All-rounder | ₹2.00 Crore | Released |
| Nitish Rana | Batsman | ₹4.20 Crore | Released |
| David Miller | Batsman | ₹2.00 Crore | Released |
| Dushmantha Chameera | Bowler | ₹75 Lakh | Released |
| Karun Nair | Batsman | ₹50 Lakh | Released |
| Madhav Tiwari | Bowler | ₹40 Lakh | Released |
| Ajay Mandal | All-rounder | ₹30 Lakh | Released |
| Tripurana Vijay | Batsman | ₹30 Lakh | Released |
| Sahil Parakh | Bowler | ₹30 Lakh | Released |
Purse Value and Auction Strategy for IPL 2027
Strip out the releases listed above, and Delhi free up somewhere in the region of ₹36–38 crore — a meaningfully larger war chest than the ₹21.80 crore they entered the 2026 auction with, and one that gives Hemang Badani’s group real choices rather than forced compromises. The question now is whether the franchise uses that flexibility to fix the right problems.
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The priorities are not hard to identify. A frontline overseas pace bowler to replace the workload Starc either carried or was supposed to carry is the most urgent item; someone with availability guarantees and a proven T20 record who doesn’t arrive in the tournament three weeks after the opening game.
A specialist wrist-spinner to fill the role that Kuldeep was supposed to occupy is the second pressing need; DC have leaned on that skill set for years and don’t have a viable internal replacement if Kuldeep goes. And if the captaincy question does get revisited, the question of whether a different leader might unlock the performances of a squad that has consistently underperformed its individual talent becomes the most important one of all.
None of this changes the baseline truth about where this franchise is. KL Rahul is in the best form of his IPL career, Axar Patel is a genuine all-round asset when he’s firing, and a squad that reached seven wins despite Starc missing half the season and Kuldeep misfiring throughout has a decent floor.
Fix the bowling, add one proven death-overs specialist, and Delhi Capitals are not a team too far from ending a five-year playoff drought. Get the auction wrong again, and the conversation next December will be about structural problems rather than squad tweaks, and that is a conversation no one at this franchise wants to be having.
