Delhi Capitals Well-Placed for Success, Says Aakash Chopra

Delhi Capitals and Punjab Kings will look to end their 18-year wait for the TATA IPL title when this season begins. Speaking on JioStar’s ‘IPL Today Live’, JioStar experts Irfan Pathan and Aakash Chopra shared their thoughts on what has hindered DC and PBKS in the past and which team looks stronger on paper to break the jinxes in 2026.

Speaking on JioStar’s ‘IPL Today Live’, JioStar expert Aakash Chopra highlighted the challenges that have plagued teams like DC and PBKS in the past:

Anyone who has won more than one trophy, even the Gujarat Titans who have reached the finals twice and won a trophy in their first two years, you will find consistency and consistency has brought them success. Where there is no success, teams continue to cut and change to find it, thinking that once they achieve success they will be stable. Then it becomes a chicken-and-egg situation. This was the problem with both PBKS and DC. One team had 15 captains and the other had 17 captains. So, if you want to change your current situation, stability is non-negotiable. “We have often seen better teams reach their best combination in the first or second game, while constantly changing teams that use around 22 out of 25 players finish closer to the bottom rather than the top.”

About DC’s improved performance in auctions:

IPL is designed to give you a chance to start over. A major auction is held every three years. Credit to Delhi, because they have been there continuously since 2019 and reached the final in 2020. The women’s team has reached the finals in all four seasons of the WPL. They did their auction right and I feel like they have a very strong unit this year. So they suspected this year might be their year.
The team that looks better on paper between PBKS and DC:

On paper, I think Delhi are a more complete unit, with enough backups for almost every slot apart from the two spinners, but you won’t even find backups for Axar Patel and Kuldeep in the entire country.

Speaking on JioStar’s ‘IPL Today Live’, JioStar expert Irfan Pathan talked about the challenges DC faced in identifying talent in the early 2010s:

I was in Punjab and Delhi for three years each. When I was in Delhi, Eric Simmons, who is now the bowling coach at CSK, was the coach and there was an effort to ensure stability. However, it is not easy to start from scratch when you leave players like AB de Villiers and take Andre Russell. I played in the same dressing room as Russell and there was a lot of discussion about giving him more opportunities, but they couldn’t find a consistent place for him in the XI. Therefore, identifying talent is very important and I think Delhi falls short in this area.
On how leadership is making a significant difference for PBKS from TATA IPL 2025 onwards:

Leadership played a major role in the transformation of Punjab. You win half of the IPL on the auction table. Big purses don’t always mean you get what you want, but they did and they made it to the finals. Even in the mini-auction, they made bold but important calls, such as releasing underperforming players like Glenn Maxwell. His situation was a bit unlucky given Josh Inglis will miss most of the season, but then you see another team go after him for a huge fee.

In this sense, they make very correct decisions. Look at the substitute players. In the past, Punjab struggled with this when they focused entirely on building the starting XI, but now you see a young Indian batting core alongside all-rounders like Azmatullah Omarzai, Marco Jansen and Marcus Stoinis. Apart from this, after deciding that Shreyas Iyer will be the Captain, they did their best for him. So there is clarity in thinking and I feel Punjab is starting to move in the right direction.