Who is John Mooney? Delhi Capitals’ new fielding coach for IPL 2026

Delhi Capitals have made a fresh move before IPL 2026, starting on March 28 in Bengaluru. The franchise has brought in former Ireland all-rounder John Mooney as their new fielding coach.

John Mooney replaced Gnaneswara Rao and Anton Roux as Delhi Capitals’ fielding coach after their stint ended in 2025. The Delhi Capitals will kick off the new season on April 1 against the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow.

Delhi Capitals rope in John Mooney as fielding coach before IPL 2026

Mooney joined an experienced coaching setup that already includes Hemang Badani as head coach, Munaf Patel as bowling coach, Ian Bell as assistant coach, and Venugopal Rao as team director.

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Adding some Irish steel to the Dilli defence 🛡️

Welcome, John Mooney! 💙❤️ pic.twitter.com/P3KEndk1mj

— Delhi Capitals (@DelhiCapitals) March 19, 2026

This is also a special moment because Mooney will become only the third Irishman to be involved in the IPL after Eoin Morgan and Josh Little—both played as players in the world’s biggest league.

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Mooney was quoted as saying by the Irish Independent: “The Capitals chance-to-catch percentage over the past three or four years has dropped considerably, and while I’ll need to maintain overall fielding standards, the brief is really to improve their catching.

I didn’t bat or bowl very well, but my fielding was good. I made some contacts, and when I played another Masters in Dubai, the coach of my team was Hemang Badani, who is also head coach of the Capitals.”

John Mooney opens up on IPL contract and working with an international star

Speaking on the worth of his two-month contract, Mooney said, "It'll only be a fraction of the $500,000 plus a season Little earned. The IPL comes with its perks, and one of them’s money!”

On working with the international stars like KL Rahul, Mitchell Starc, and David Miller, the Irish star said, "The thing with many top-level players is that often they reach a stage in their careers where they take it for granted that on the night everything will be alright.

But if you don’t look after the basics of body and head positions and footwork, you’ll drop chances when you’re under pressure. At the end of any tournament you can look back at the statistics, and it’s usually the better fielding sides that win them.”

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Who is John Mooney?

John Mooney is not new to coaching at the international level. Before joining Delhi Capitals, the former Ireland player had worked as Afghanistan’s fielding coach from 2018 to 2019. That was also the period when Afghanistan played their first-ever Test match in India.

Later, in 2019, he also worked with the West Indies men’s team. This year, Mooney has also been working with the Ireland women’s team as a temporary coach since January. Mooney holds Level 3, 2, and 1 coaching certificates from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). So, he brings Delhi a good coaching experience from different teams and different levels of cricket.

As a player, the former left-handed batter played 91 international matches. He featured in three ODI World Cups in 2007, 2011, and 2015 and also played in two T20 World Cups. Overall, Mooney played 64 ODIs and 27 T20Is for Ireland between 2006 and 2015.

He has over 1100 runs and around 60 wickets to his name in international cricket. One of his biggest moments came in the 2011 World Cup, where he hit the winning runs in Ireland’s famous victory over England in Bengaluru.