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The sudden exodus of players like Gautam Gambhir, Tillakaratne Dilshan and AB de Villiers seemed to have taken the daredevilry out of the Delhi side last season. The GMR-owned Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise sunk to a new low in 2011, finishing dead last in the points table.
As they say, "the night is darkest before dawn." It couldn't get much worse than this for a side that reached the last four stage of the IPL in, both, 2008 and 2009. It was clearly time for an overhaul.
The think-tank immediately went about changing the look of the side to bring back that lost spark. With the likes of Ashok Dinda , Matthew Wade and Andrew McDonald packed off, former England skipper Kevin Pietersen was brought on board from RCB. KP will be a terrific addition to Virender Sehwag and David Warner at the top.
Among other new entries to watch out for will be the exciting West Indies all-rounder Andre Russell. Taylor's teammate Doug Bracewell is another useful addition to the pace attack. The side looks well balanced in the pace bowling department with Umesh Yadav leading the attack accompanied by Varun Aaron. Irfan Pathan and Ajit Agarkar will add experience to this line-up along with Morkel.
THE LINEUP
Indian angle:
Virender Sehwag (captain), Irfan Pathan, Venugopal Rao, Naman Ojha, Ajit Agarkar, Yogesh Nagar, Umesh Yadav, Shahbaz Nadeem, Punit Bisht, Aavishkar Salvi, Varun Aaron, Robin Bist, Sunny Gupta, Unmukt Chand, Prashant Naik, Vikas Mishra, Zafir Patel, Kuldeep Raval Manpreet Juneja, Tejaswi Yadav, Pawan Negi
FOREIGN PLAYERS:
David Warner, Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene, Ross Taylor, Roelof van der Merwe, Morne Morkel, Glen Maxwell, Ghulam Bodi, Aaron Finch, Andre Russell, Doug Bracewell.
STRENGTHS
The addition of Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene and Ross Taylor provides much-needed solidity to the batting. Virender Sehwag and David Warner only know one way to bat, so no total will be potentially out of reach. Their pace attack has always been strong and the likes of Doug Bracewell and Andre Russell will add to it. Umesh Yadav and Varun Aaron's development is great news for the side.
WEAKNESSES
The one big grey area is their spin bowling. The side lacks quality and experience in this department. The injury to Ross Taylor hasn't helped the Devils' cause either.
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