Harry Brook who was bought by Delhi Capitals for this year’s IPL has withdrawn from the tournament at the last season stating he wants to concentrate on playing for his national team as long summer is coming for them. Now DC has to find a proper middle order explosive batter as his replacement in his place.
There are some possible replacements DC good opt for:
Michael Bracewell
DC has two elite Indian left arm spinners Axar Patel and Kuldeep Yadav in their squad. DC need an off spinner who could support them in a probably spin friendly pitches like Cheapuk (*Chennai) and Ekana (*Lucknow). Bracewell who is in the great form recently as we could see in the Champions trophy could be their off spinning option to tackle the left handers and will also provide depth to their batting line up.
The Kiwi All rounder scored a half century and took the important wicket of Virat Kohli in the Champions Trophy Final against India. He has good records in Indian pitches too. Axar Patel At No.6, Ashutosh Sharma at no.7 and Michael Bracewell At No. 8 could be a match winning combo at the death overs in DC batting line up were the top order is heavily explosive with the names of Faf Du Plesisis, Jake Fraser-McGurk, KL Rahul, Tristan Stubbs and Abhishek Porel.
Dewald Brevis
He is the apt replacement for Harry Brook. The young South African was a sensation back in 2022 when he played for his U-19 national team. He was famously called as “baby AB” as he replicates some of his shots. He was picked by Mumbai Indians in 2022 and got few chances but couldn’t prove exceptionally.
Dewald Brevis was soon faded away from the limelight as his performance couldn’t meet the expectations on him. He has wide range of shots and he is good against both spin and pace. His batting style would perfectly suit the flat pitch of the Arun Jaitley Stadium. Even AB de Villiers started his IPL career in Delhi Daredevils ( the name was changed as Delhi Capitals in 2019 ) and scored a century for them. So Delhi could be the starting point for “Baby AB” too.
Daryl Mitchell
The New Zealand All rounder was bought by a huge price of 14 crore by CSK last year by seeing his brilliant performance in 2023 CWC and ability to tackle spin by his sweep shots. He had a decent season but couldn’t match up the expectations build on him and CSK eventually released him ahead of the mega auction and was unsold
He is still a valuable player who can contribute to any team which picks him. He can handy in the middle order by counter attacking the spin bowlers. He provides medium pace bowling option as well as DC are lacking a fast bowling all rounder. DC will have that extra bowling option in their team and he is a gun fielder too.
Shardul Thakur, Dwaine Pretorius and Sarfaraz Khan can also be considered as other options.