Monday (January 8) turned out to be a dark day in the history of Delhi cricket. In the Ranji Trophy, it lost to Puducherry by 9 wickets. This defeat was a disgrace for Delhi as Puducherry had made its first-class cricket debut only five years ago, while the Delhi team has been playing for decades and is one of the legendary teams in the country.
In this Group D match, the Delhi team, which entered first, managed just 148 runs. After this shameful first innings performance, Delhi also flopped in their bowling and Puducherry scored 244 runs in the first innings to take a 96-run lead. After that, the Delhi team was also limited for just 145 runs in the second innings. In this way, Puducherry achieved the target of winning by 50 runs, which they achieved by losing just one wicket.
This time Yash Dhull is captaining Delhi in the Ranji Trophy. Yash won the World Cup for the Indian Under-19 team under his captaincy. But here in Ranji it proved to be a flop. The blame for the shameful defeat against Puducherry lay with him. He was immediately relieved of his duties as captain of Delhi. Now Himmat Singh has been appointed captain in his place. Ayush Badauni, on the other hand, remains the vice-captain of the team.
Delhi head coach Devang Gandhi says it is the selectors' decision to remove Yash from the captaincy. In my opinion, Yash is the future of Delhi and Indian cricket. He is a good cricketer. His priority now will be to score runs. Currently, the captaincy is not helping him score runs as a batsman.
The Delhi team now has to play a Ranji match against Jammu and Kashmir from January 12. The Jammu and Kashmir team is very weak compared to Delhi. Now it will be interesting to see how the Delhi team can erase the stain of their previous shameful defeat.