Delhi Daredevils is the Delhi franchise for the Indian Premier League. The franchise is owned by the GMR Group. The team is captained by Virender Sehwag, who is also the designated Icon Player for the franchise.
During the franchise auction for the Indian Premier League teams, the GMR group acquired the rights for the Delhi franchise for $84 million. Bollywood superstar Akshay Kumar is the brand ambassador of the team.
The Daredevils were well poised from the onset of the first IPL season, having most of their core players with the exception of Daniel Vettori vailable for the whole tournament. The team built their batting lineup around Delhi openers Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir and used the majority of their foreign player quota on their bowling attack lead by Glenn McGrath and Mohammed Asif.
The team started the tournament well, winning 4 of their first 5 games. However, they were unable to sustain this and finished the round-robin portion of the tournament with a record of 7-6. Their performance was good enough to make the semi-finals, where they lost by 105 runs against the Rajasthan Royals. Royals, who had lost to the Daredevils in their first encounter, went on to win the title.
Virender Sehwag has been accorded the icon player status in the Delhi team and is also the captain of the side. The team includes star players like Gautam Gambhir, AB De Villiers, Paul Collingwood, Owais Shah and Tillakaratne Dilshan.
Bowling attack includes Glenn McGrath, Farveez Maharoof, Ashish Nehra and Daniel Vettori. Team also includes young Indian promising players - Manoj Tiwary, Dinesh Karthik, Rajat Bhatia and Yo Mahesh.
IPL 2009 Additions: Mohammad Asif and Shoaib Malik goes out. David Warner, Andrew McDonald come in. Ashish Nehra comes in as a trade-off for Shikhar Dhawan. IPL 2009 Auction Addition: Paul Collingwood and Owais Shah.
