Daredevils bank heavily on middle order

1 Quinton de Kock/CM Gautam (wk), 2 Travis Head/Mayank Agarwal, 3 Yuvraj Singh, 4 JP Duminy (capt), 5 Angelo Mathews, 6 Kedar Jadhav, 7 Manoj Tiwary/Saurabh Tiwary, 8 Amit Mishra, 9 Zaheer Khan/Nathan Coulter-Nile, 10 Mohammed Shami, 11 Imran Tahir
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Having ended 2013 bottom of the table, Delhi Daredevils began 2014 a little more encouragingly, winning two of their first five matches. They didn't win a single game after that, though, and finished with just four points, the joint-lowest total for a season alongside Deccan Chargers in 2008.

On Facebook, Delhi Daredevils have the fewest 'Likes' among all current IPL teams, including Sunrisers Hyderabad, who only came into existence two years ago. It reflects Daredevils' lack of silverware, but also their inability to create and hold onto a core of players.

Forgetting the restriction on overseas players for a moment, you could come up with this XI from just the players they have let go of: Virender Sehwag, David Warner, Kevin Pietersen, Mahela Jayawardene, AB de Villiers, Glenn Maxwell, Dinesh Karthik, Andre Russell, Daniel Vettori, Morne Morkel, Umesh Yadav. That still leaves room on the subs bench for Gautam Gambhir, James Neesham, Shikhar Dhawan, Aaron Finch, Tillakaratne Dilshan, Ross Taylor, Irfan Pathan and Varun Aaron.

Daredevils could really do without this constant chop and change, but for that they probably need one season in which a team falls into place. There's a fair amount of pedigree in their squad this season, but the key issue for the management will be how quickly they identify their best XI.

Daredevils struggled with their openers last season, and they didn't really bolster that area of their squad at the 2015 auction. The middle order looks quite potent, though, with Yuvraj Singh and Angelo Mathews arriving to support JP Duminy and Kedar Jadhav, last season's two biggest successes. There is more bowling depth this time around, particularly in the spin department, with Amit Mishra joining Imran Tahir and Shahbaz Nadeem.

Yuvraj Singh's international career has faded away over the last couple of years, but that hasn't stopped him from becoming the highest earner at successive IPL auctions. Royal Challengers Bangalore splashed Rs. 14 crore on him last year, and Daredevils reached even deeper into their pockets this time, shelling out Rs. 16 crore. Last season, Yuvraj made 376 runs for Royal Challengers at an average of 34.18 and a strike rate of 135.25. Perfectly good numbers on the surface, but there was a strong element of boom-or-bust about his season, with 203 of his runs coming in three innings, at a strike rate of 211.46, and his other 11 innings bringing him 173 runs at a strike rate of 95.05. Two of his three half-centuries, moreover, came against Daredevils, who finished rock-bottom. A little more consistency and fluency from Yuvraj this time around could help Daredevils avoid that sort of fate.

A large part of Daredevils' struggles last season were down to the lack of depth in their pace department, particularly after Nathan Coulter-Nile was ruled out with a hamstring injury picked up during their second match of the season. With Coulter-Nile available, his compatriot Gurinder Sandhu in the mix, Mohammed Shami bringing excellent rhythm from the World Cup, and Zaheer Khan adding experience and guile, Daredevils have a far healthier pace attack this season.

Adelaide Strikers finished top of the 2014-15 BBL points table, and an important cog in their machine was the left-handed top-order batsman Travis Head, who was the only player in the tournament to make more than 200 runs at a 150-plus strike rate. Daredevils must have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of competition for Head's signing at the auction, and picked him up for Rs. 30 lakh.

No known injuries at the moment.

Head coach - Gary Kirsten, Assistant coach - Pravin Amre and Sridharan Sriram, Bowling coach - Alfonso Thomas