Kevin Pietersen Appointed as Delhi Capitals' Mentor for IPL 2025

Former England captain Kevin Pietersen has been appointed as the mentor of Delhi Capitals for the upcoming IPL season. Badani (head coach), Mott (assistant coach), Patel (bowling coach), and Rao (cricket director) will be part of the team's support staff along with the 44-year-old. This was shared by the team on its app but the side has still not revealed who will be leading the team in the new season.

This is Pietersen's first coaching job in the IPL. He played his last game in the league in 2016. Pietersen played for three teams in the IPL from 2009 to 2016, including Delhi (which was called Daredevils back then), and he even led the team 17 times as captain. He briefly captained Royal Challengers Bengaluru in IPL 2009 and then was the full-season captain of Daredevils in 2014, when they came last with only two wins in 14 games.

Pietersen also led England in 15 international games, including a two-match series in India in 2008. Since he captained Delhi in IPL 2014, he has stayed close with Kiran Kumar Grandhi, the head of GMR, which co-owns the DC team. In September last year, Pietersen helped make an important deal between GMR and Hampshire County Cricket Club. He and Grandhi also went to watch England's T20 match against Australia at the Utilita Bowl in 2024.

Pietersen has also played in the Big Bash League (BBL), Pakistan Super League (PSL), and Caribbean Premier League (CPL) besides the IPL. In total, he played 200 T20 matches and scored 5695 runs, with an average of 33.89 and a strike rate of almost 137. DC, who have only reached an IPL final once, finished sixth in IPL 2024. They went into last year's auction with the most money among all ten teams after selling most of their top players and keeping only Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs, and Abishek Porel. Later, they added star players like KL Rahul, Harry Brook, Faf du Plessis, and Mitchell Starc to their team.

Delhi Capitals Squad for IPL 2025: Full List of Players

Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs, Abishek Porel, Mitchell Starc, KL Rahul, Harry Brook, Jake Fraser-McGurk, T. Natarajan, Karun Nair, Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Faf du Plessis, Mukesh Kumar, Darshan Nalkande, Vipraj Nigam, Dushmantha Chameera, Donovan Ferreira, Ajay Mandal, Manvanth Kumar, Tripurana Vijay, Madhav Tiwari.

Delhi Capitals Coaching Staff for IPL 2025

• Head Coach: Hemang Badani

• Director of Cricket: Venugopal Rao

• Bowling Coach: Munaf Patel

• Head Talent Scout: Vijay Bharadwaj

• Assistant Coach: Matthew Mott

• Mentor: Kevin Pietersen

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