It has been five seasons since the Delhi Capitals (DC) played their only Indian Premier League (IPL) final. Since then, they have failed to qualify four times in a row. In an attempt to arrest the slide, the DC management has done a great job to build a strong squad. However, almost all the franchises have a good enough team. What do DC have different?

For once, they have filled the holes in their team. The base price signings of Ben Duckett and David Miller have been smart. A pre-auction trade of Nitish Rana from Rajasthan Royals was needed. However, perhaps the most frugal signing at the IPL 2026 auction for DC was Lungi Ngidi for his base price of INR 2 crore. The Axar Patel-led side will start their campaign on April 1 against LSG, similar to the last season when Ashutosh Sharma’s last-ball heroics stole the show.

With that, let us take a look at Delhi Capitals’ predicted playing XI with an impact sub ahead of IPL 2026.

KL Rahul to open with Prithvi Shaw

The biggest headache for the Delhi Capitals management would be committing to a fixed opening combo. However, Axar Patel confirming that KL Rahul will open this season solves a lot of uncertainities. Yet, there remains a question mark as to who will open alongside him. DC have been in search of a settled opening combination ever since Shaw and Shikhar Dhawan broke up.

They tried Faf du Plessis and Jake Fraser-McGurk but that didn’t work. Now, they have signed Ben Duckett and Pathum Nissanka. Both are able T20 openers, but DC also penned down the signing of Shaw, who has returned after going unsold in 2025. He would suit the best alongside Rahul, who might just bring the best out of Shaw. Form has been on his side as well, having scored 537 runs at an average of 48.82 in the Ranji Trophy last season. A redemption arc awaits for Shaw, who is much more experienced now.

Having an all-Indian opening attack would also allow DC to slot in an extra overseas player in their bowling, something we will talk about later in the article. As for Rahul, this would be the second season for him at DC. Last year, he enjoyed his best IPL campaign since 2018 in terms of strike rate, as he bludgeoned at almost 150 while batting in the middle order and as an opener.

Miller adds firepower to strong DC middle-order

Now, here comes the rest of the batting lineup. To complement what should be an attacking opening pair, Delhi have stable options in the middle order. There will be a head-to-head battle for a place between Abhisek Porel and Nitish Rana. We feel DC should start with Rana, who has been in an incredible form in T20s.

A local lad, Rana will finally play at his home ground in Delhi, where he made his domestic return as well last year. He shone in the Delhi Premier League 2025, taking his franchise to the title single-handedly. Rana smoked 134 (55), 45 (26) and 79 (49) in the three knockout games, remaining unbeaten in all of them. He then followed it up with a good SMAT campaign as well. While Porel also had a decent domestic season, Rana adds up as a bowling option as well.

The duo of Tristan Stubbs and David Miller would be the engine room of Delhi’s batting this year. While the two would start all the matches for the side, DC don’t have able replacements for the two either. DC have done well to invest in Stubbs, as he remains one of the few players to have an average of above 50 and a strike rate of above 170 while batting in the middle-order in the IPL. Only Nicholas Pooran tops Stubbs in that metric. But Stubbs (678) has more than Pooran (534) while batting at No. 4-7. Similarly, DC missed someone like David Miller last year. The southpaw would give Axar Patel a breathing space in the batting lineup and his vast experience of playing 557 T20 matches.

Ashutosh Sharma, the X-factor?

That’s not it. Delhi Capitals’ batting would run till eight and nine if you bank on Kuldeep Yadav too. The next three batting options in line are Axar Patel, Ashutosh Sharma and Vipraj Nigam. In Axar and Nigam, you have at least six overs sorted as well, if not eight.

It would be an interesting season for Axar the captain as well. Last year, he disappointed fans with some tactical calls but would know better now, being more experienced, having acted as Suryakumar Yadav’s deputy at the T20 World Cup 2026 win, too. He is a gun fielder and a superb spin hitter too.

Talking about hitters, DC have their X-factor in the form of Ashutosh Sharma as well. The powerful bloke from Madhya Pradesh has a T20 strike rate of 175.27 after having played 45 T20 innings, including 18 in the IPL. To make him work for his slot would be Sameer Rizvi, who might start on the bench.

Meanwhile, to complete the batting attack will be Vipraj Nigam, who proved to be the biggest revelation for DC last year. Playing his maiden season, Nigam delivered a superb all-round show, having taken 11 wickets and scoring 142 runs at a SR of 179.74, the best for the franchise in 2025.

No Natarajan but Auqib Nabi to be tested

Here comes the bowling unit of DC which looks very well structured as of now. Kuldeep Yadav will be a relieved man now, having been part of the World Cup history and obviously after his wedding. He is easily the highest wicket-taker for DC ever since joining the side in 2022. For the Capitals, Kuldeep has 62 wickets at an incredible economy of 7.85. He would be the biggest wicket-taking option for Axar in the middle overs.

Now, the three-man pace attack includes Mitchell Starc, Lungi Ngidi and uncapped talent Auqib Nabi. While Starc might not start for DC in the first game due to Australia’s workload management, he will certainly feature in their strongest XI. His left-arm menacing speed would be just too good for the opposition. When not available, DC can always look at Indian pacer T Natarajan, who was retained for INR 10.75 crore despite his run of injuries. He might not start from the get-go but will be in the plans of the management.

Strongest Delhi Capitals Playing XI for IPL 2026

S. No.	Player	Backup Player
1	KL Rahul (wk)	Ben Duckett ✈️
2	Prithvi Shaw	Pathum Nissanka ✈️
3	Nitish Rana	Abishek Porel (wk)
4	Tristran Stubbs ✈️	Karun Nair/Sahil Parakh
5	David Miller ✈️
6	Axar Patel (C)
7	Ashutosh Sharma	Sameer Rizvi
8	Vipraj Nigam	Madhav Tiwari/Ajay Mandal
9	Kuldeep Yadav	Tripurana Vijay
10	Mitchell Starc ✈️	Dushmantha Chameera ✈️
11	Auqib Nabi	T Natarajan/Mukesh Kumar
Impact Player (12)	Lungi Ngidi ✈️	Kyle Jamieson ✈️

Meanwhile, to complement him, DC acquired a major coup in the form of Ngidi, who is currently one of the best T20 pacers right now. Ngidi can rack up pace around 145 km/h. However, his biggest weapon is his variety of slower balls. He shone brightly at the T20 World Cup in India, having taken 12 wickets at an economy of 7.19. In the last 12 months, he has taken 41 wickets at a superb economy of 7.92 despite bowling difficult overs.

To cap off the lineup, we have debutant Auqib Nabi. Nabi’s hype is through the roof ahead of IPL 2026! The J&K pacer made headlines at the December 2025 mini-auction, bagging a whopping INR 8.40 crore deal with DC, a massive jump from his INR 30 lakh base price. His Ranji Trophy form was on fire as he topped the wicket-takers list with 60 wickets in 10 matches at an average of 12.56, leading J&K to their maiden title and winning Player of the Series.

He can dance batters to his tunes with the new ball, a sight that we saw in a DC vs DC matchup when KL Rahul was undone by a beauty by Nabi in the Ranji Trophy final. He is expected to keep Mukesh Kumar out of the XI initially. Then, Nabi’s performances would dictate how long he keeps himself in the DC playing XI at IPL 2026.

DC squad for IPL 2026

Nitish Rana (traded in from RR), Abishek Porel, Ajay Mandal, Ashutosh Sharma, Axar Patel, Dushmantha Chameera, Karun Nair, KL Rahul, Kuldeep Yadav, Madhav Tiwari, Mitchell Starc, Sameer Rizvi, T Natarajan, Tripurana Vijay, Tristan Stubbs, Vipraj Nigam, Mukesh Kumar, David Miller (2 Cr), Ben Duckett (2 Cr), Auqib Nabi (8.4 Cr), Pathum Nissanka (4 Cr), Lungi Ngidi (2 Cr), Sahil Parakh (30 L), Prithvi Shaw (75 L), Kyle Jamieson (2 Cr).

IPL 2026 – Delhi Capitals Matches

Match	Date	Teams	Venue	Local Time (IST)
5th Match	April 1	Lucknow Super Giants vs Delhi Capitals	Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow	7:30 PM
8th Match	April 4	Delhi Capitals vs Mumbai Indians	Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi	3:30 PM
14th Match	April 8	Delhi Capitals vs Gujarat Titans	Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi	7:30 PM
18th Match	April 11	Chennai Super Kings vs Delhi Capitals	MA Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai	7:30 PM