Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting expects young right-handed batter Yash Dhull and emerging all-rounder Aman Khan to be the breakout stars for the franchise in IPL 2023. Dhull had been India's U19 World Cup-winning captain in 2022 while Khan got into the side after Shardul Thakur was traded to Kolkata Knight Riders.
"Yash Dhull, the ex-India U19 captain has had a really good domestic season and I'm hoping that he gets some good opportunity to play for Delhi Capitals through this season. The other one is Aman Khan whom we traded from Kolkata (Knight Riders) for Shardul Thakur."
"He's been ultra-impressive in everything that he's done so far in our training camps and when we played our first practice game the other night he dominated that. I think he made 72 not out off about 38 balls and he is big, tall, strong and powerful."
"I don't know what a lot of the other squads have got as far as young talents concerned, but I know we've got a couple here that are very, very good and we're hoping to be able to showcase them as the season goes on," said Ponting in the latest episode of the ICC Review show.
During the course of the eight-week tournament, Australia's veteran left-handed opener David Warner will be captaining the franchise in the absence of regular skipper Rishabh Pant.
Ponting thinks defending champions Gujarat Titans and runners-up Rajasthan Royals will be the teams that will be giving tough competition to other teams in IPL 2023. "It's a tough question as very rarely does a team dominate the IPL from the start to the finish.
Obviously, Gujarat (Titans) last year were amazing, a brand new team and were able to win the tournament." "The other finalist of last year, Rajasthan Royals, I think have got a really, really good squad.
And we said that last year, immediately after the auction, we were pretty impressed with what they were able to do and put a good squad together. They've only built on that again this year.
I think Rajasthan will be there, thereabouts." "It's a hard game to judge and a hard game to understand who's going to win. Those who stand up in the moment will generally win more often than not.
But if I'm looking at the squads, Rajasthan has got a good squad as anybody." Ponting believes the new playing conditions that have been introduced for this year's edition of the IPL will take some time to get used to.
Teams don't have to announce their playing elevens until after the toss this year and can name four players as substitutes and can use one as an Impact Player during a match.
"I like what they (tournament organisers) are trying to do by trying to get more involved in the game and get different players involved in the game and I am interested to see how it works.
Different teams are going to use the impact player in different ways and I am really intrigued to see how that will work." "Let's wait and see. It's a nice innovation and it's definitely going to give a lot more work to the coaches once the game starts.
I mean, normally as a coach, once the game is started, there's not much you can do to influence the outcome of the game. But with this. I think there's some significant ways that you can tactically influence the game."
"I know the captain's the only one that can activate the impact player but the coaches will be doing most of the thinking on the sideline and passing information to the captain."
Delhi Capitals will open their IPL 2023 campaign against KL Rahul-led Lucknow Super Giants on April 1 at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium in Lucknow.