Rishabh Pant was unhappy with appointment of Hemang Badani as DC head coach, feared losing his powers: Report

Delhi Capitals (DC) made a bold move on Thursday (31 October) by deciding to release their skipper Rishabh Pant ahead of the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction. Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs and Abhishek Porel were retained by DC , but not Pant, whose eight-year association with the franchise thus comes to an end.

Pant had joined DC in 2016, and became the franchise’s captain in 2021, a year after DC had reached the final of IPL 2020 where they lost to Mumbai Indians (MI). Since 2021, Pant led Delhi Capitals in 43 matches, leading them to 23 victories.

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Delhi Capitals are co-owned by GMR Group and JSW Sports, with the former handling the cricketing operations for DC in the IPL for the next two years. The GMR Group management was responsible for the recent changes in the DC coaching setup.

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While Hemang Badani was appointed the new DC head coach, Venugopal Rao has been roped in as the Director of Cricket. However, according to a report in news agency PTI, Pant is unhappy with the “powers being curbed” by the GMR Group whereas he has also expressed dissatisfaction with the appointments of Hemang Badani and Venugopal Rao.

‘He was not happy about his powers being curbed’

“In case of Pant, more than money, he was not happy about his powers being curbed by GMR, the co-owners, who will run the show for the next two years. He was also, it is learnt, not happy with Hemang Badani as head coach and Y Venugopal Rao as Team Director,” said the report.

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DC will go into the IPL 2025 mega auction with a purse of Rs 73 crores, after having retained four of their players. DC have not qualified for the IPL playoffs since 2021, and finished sixth in IPL 2024 with 14 points.

Pant played 111 matches for DC since making his IPL debut in 2016, scoring 3284 runs including 18 fifties and one century. He missed IPL 2023 due to injuries he had sustained in December 2022 during a horrific car accident. The wicketkeeper-batter will likely be in huge demand during the IPL 2025 mega auction that is reportedly set to take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia later in November.