Franchise teams aren’t easy to run, and they tend to throw up something out of the ordinary from time to time. The Delhi Capitals story is one such. That there were issues between the two corporates who run the franchise was known. And yet, nothing really surfaced. To their credit, things were kept under wraps for a long time. Having said that, it was always an issue as to how the team would be run going forward. Now, it has been decided that JSW, led by Parth Jindal, and GMR will take turns to run the team for two years at a stretch. While the auction will be done jointly, the Delhi Capitals men’s team for 2025-6 and 2026-7 will be run by GMR. JSW, on the other hand, will run the women’s team for those two years, as well as the Pretoria Capitals franchise.
Is it viable? Can such an arrangement ever be implemented in reality, and how it will work on ground are questions that we don’t have answers to just yet.
Things have been brewing at DC for over three months now. From what we know, there were multiple meetings before this decision was finally arrived at. In the two years that GMR will run the team, JSW will have no more than a supporting role. The appointment of coaches, senior management, team director and all other executive decisions are likely to be taken by GMR. Two years later, the roles will be reversed and JSW will start taking calls about the men’s team.
This also means that Sourav Ganguly, who is extremely close to JSW and Jindal, one of the most passionate and hands on IPL owners, will not be team director for the next two years. He will be involved with the auction, yes, but will not have a hands-on role for the next two seasons.
Will such an arrangement give confidence to the players and the support staff? Can such volatility inspire long-term confidence? Who will the support staff be loyal to, and when JSW take over two years from now, will there be new support staff in place yet again?
The truth is, none of this is really known. While both JSW and GMR remain tight-lipped, a press release was issued on Thursday. What is also known is that Rishabh Pant, Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav are three players likely to be retained at 18, 14 and 11 crores respectively.
With the IPL auction just over month away, the first real test of this arrangement will be then. Will the new support staff led by Hemang Badani take calls, or will it be done in sync? Will too many power centres complicate things for DC? No franchise has ever worked with a similar arrangement before, and in that sense, it is a first in the history of the IPL.
Two things to sum up – first and foremost, this arrangement can’t be the best for any franchise. It just doesn’t inspire confidence, and is the result of a governance crisis. Secondly, if results don’t go their way, things could well come to a boil way earlier than the two-year timeframe.
It is time now to wait and watch how all of this unfolds.