After letting go of Pant, Delhi Capitals to make Shreyas Iyer top target at IPL 2025 mega auction | Exclusive

Shreyas Iyer was released by KKR despite leading the franchise to the IPL 2024 title.

Shreyas Iyer currently finds himself in a position he wouldn’t have envisaged at the start of the year. He is not a BCCI centrally contracted player anymore and despite leading Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to their third Indian Premier League (IPL) title, he will go under the hammer at the IPL 2025 mega auction.

Hailing from Mumbai, Iyer was destined for success given his talent and ice-cool temperament. He made his domestic debut for Mumbai in 2014 and his IPL debut for Delhi Capitals (then Daredevils) in 2015. He climbed the ladder quickly and made his India debut in ODIs and T20Is in 2017.

He had to wait a while for his test debut, but when it came, in 2021, he grabbed his chance with a century.

However, things took a turn in 2022. He parted ways with Delhi Capitals, a franchise he had led previously, and he also started to get pushed out of the test and T20I teams owing to his shortcomings against the short ball.

He made a strong comeback in 2023 with a bumper campaign at the ICC ODI World Cup, scoring 530 runs in 11 matches, with three fifties and two tons, including a match-winning century in the semi-final against New Zealand.

However, earlier this year, he was dropped from the test team and then wasn’t considered for a central contract after not playing in the Ranji Trophy despite being asked to.

While he did have an excellent IPL 2024 campaign with KKR, scoring 351 runs and leading them to their third title, it came as a shock when he was not among the franchise’s retained players ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction.

KKR CEO Venky Mysore revealed that they wanted to retain Iyer, but the skipper wished to test his market value at the mega auction.

Delhi Capitals to splurge on Shreyas Iyer in the IPL 2025 mega auction

According to sources in the know, Delhi Capitals are set to bid fiercely for Shreyas Iyer at the mega auction. DC recently parted ways with Rishabh Pant, ending a nine-year association.

It has been learned that Delhi’s co-owners, the GMR Group, were the key drivers in the decision to release Pant and are adamant on roping back Iyer as a captain.

“Delhi Capitals’ co-owners the GMR Group, who are managing the team on a two-year rotational basis now, will bid aggressively for Shreyas Iyer at the mega auction due to their strong relationship with the player,” a source told Khel Now.

The Delhi Capitals are jointly-owned by Kiran Kumar Grandhi’s GMR Group and Parth Jindal’s JSW Sports. They have an agreement on running operations of their teams in the IPL and WPL on a two-year rotational basis. For the 2025-2026 cycle, Grandhi’s GMR Group will run the men’s IPL team, while JSW Sports will be in-charge of the women’s team in the WPL.

It is understood that the GMR Group has a strong relationship with Iyer, while JSW favoured Pant. It was under GMR’s tenure that Iyer captained Delhi Capitals to their maiden IPL final in 2020, which they lost to Mumbai Indians

Then, Pant was made the captain for IPL 2021 as Iyer had missed the first half of the season due to a shoulder injury. They also continued with Pant as captain even when Iyer returned for the second half of the season.

The Capitals then had to make a call between Pant and Iyer ahead of the IPL 2022 mega auction as their future skipper. It was JSW Sports who were in-charge of the operations in 2022 and they opted for Pant. Unhappy, Iyer moved away and was bought by KKR.

Now, with GMR Group back in-charge and with Rishabh Pant being released, they wish to bring back Iyer as the skipper.

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