IPL 2025: Sourav Ganguly sacked? Hemang Badani, Venugopal Rao appointed DC head coach, director of cricket

In a major development, the Delhi Capitals (DC) have appointed Hemang Badani and Venugopal Rao as their new head coach and director of cricket, as per a report in Cricbuzz.

Delhi Capitals recently parted ways with Ricky Ponting, who was appointed as the head coach of the franchise in 2018. He had a good start to his stint, guiding the franchise to three consecutive playoffs in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

In his tenure, Delhi Capitals also made it to their maiden final in the Indian Premier League in the 2020 season. However, the Shreyas Iyer-led side faced a heartbreaking loss at the hands of Rohit Sharma's Mumbai Indians, who clinched their 5th title.

Also, Sourav Ganguly was appointed as the Director of Cricket for the Delhi Capitals (DC) in March 2023, and now it looks like he, too, has parted ways with the franchise as a new director of cricket has been appointed.

Hemang Badani, Venugopal Rao Join DC Support Staff

On Wednesday, October 16, Cricbuzz reported that Delhi Capitals have locked in on their new head coach for the next two IPL seasons. Hemang Badani has been finalized for the role of the head coach while Venugopal Rao, will serve as the new director of cricket.

The duo are known for their immense professionalism and understanding of the game, and they have been granted the freedom to pick the rest of the coaching staff.

Notably, Hemang Badani and Venugopal Rao have been involved with the franchise's subsidiaries in the ILT20 in UAE and Major League Cricket (MLC) in the USA.

In ILT20 and MLC, Dubai Capitals and Seattle Orcas are owned by Delhi Capitals co-owner Kiran Kumar Grandhi of the GMR Group, who will be taking charge of Delhi Capitals in IPL 2025 and 2026 as in the previous two years, JSW managed the things.

Rishabh Pant To Be Retained By Delhi Capitals

Recently, Rishabh Pant posted an interesting tweet where he wrote, "If go to the auction. will I be sold or not and for how much ??". This led to speculations of his Delhi Capitals exit.

However, reportedly the wicketkeeper-batsman is all set to continue with the franchise in IPL. Recently, another report by PTI suggested that Delhi Capitals have decided to retain just three players.

The first player will be Rishabh Pant, who will get INR 18 crore, while Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav will be the next two retentions, and they will get INR 14 crore and INR 11 crore. Also, it was reported that Jake Fraser-McGurk and Tristan Stubbs are two players for whom DC will be using RTMs.

Several Players Opting Not To Be Retained

In yet another major development, several big players are opting not to be retained as they wish to enter the mega auction to know their real market value.

The main reason behind this move is the new RTM rule, which allows the highest bidding franchisees one final chance to lift their bid to the amount of their choice before the Right To Match option is exercised.

The IPL 2025 mega auction is likely to be held in November end, and the BCCI is yet to finalize the venue. The names of Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore were being floated around but now Vienna is also being considered.