NEW DELHI: Indian Premier League franchise Delhi Capitals had a fantastic two-day mega auction in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia where they hogged the limelight with their marquee buy of star India batter KL Rahul.
Having retained Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs and Abishek Porel, the Delhi-based franchise made a steal deal with Rahul as he was bought for Rs 14 crore.
After the two-day affair concluded on Monday, DC have pulled off a near-perfect squad which has a terrific mix of experience and youth. While DC had quite a few impressive buys at the auction alongside Rahul, bringing in the likes of Aussie speedster Mitchell Starc and Englishman Harry Brook, their strategy in picking the India domestic young guns also turned out to be quite interesting.
Late on the second day of the auction, DC picked domestic talents in bulk and at low prices — majorly all-rounder — indicating an investment into the future.
And the credit for that goes to former India cricketer Vijay Bharadwaj, who in October, had joined the franchise as the head of the talent scout wing.
Along with DC director of cricket Venugopal Rao, who hails from Andhra and keenly follows state cricket, Bharadwaj was instrumental in zeroing in on the local talent as they picked the lesser-known players from the franchise trials, state leagues.
Six fringe players — Manvanth Kumar (30 Lakh), Madhav Tiwari (40 Lakh), Tripurana Vijay (30 Lakh), Ajay Mandal (30 Lakh), Vipraj Nigam (50 Lakh) and Darshan Nalkande (30 Lakh) — were all picked by the franchise around their base prices as the franchise went big on local all-rounders.
Here’s a quick look at the ‘desi’ talents and how they have fared in India’s domestic circuit.
Ajay Mandal (all-rounder)
Ajay Jadav Mandal, who hails from Madhya Pradesh has got quite decent experience in India’s domestic circuit.
The 28-year-old represents Chattisgarh and made his First Class debut back in 2016.
The all-rounder bats left-handed and is a slow, orthodox spinner.
Interestingly, Ajay was picked by Chennai Super Kings previously but was not given a chance in the XI.
Before the 2025 auction, Ajay scored — 69, 66, 11*, 64, 21, 69, 57*, 2, 51*, 21, 63 — heavily with the bat at no.7-8 and also picked a decent number of wickets in Ranji Trophy.
Ajay has featured in 39 First Class games for Chhattisgarh and has a total of 1,822 runs and 124 wickets to his name. With the bat, Ajay has hit 241* in Ranji and has best figures of 7/7.
Ajay also has featured in 30 List A and 42 T20s where he has 852 runs and 71 wickets combined.
Darshan Nalkande (bowler)
Skiddy pacer Darshan Nalkande, born in Wardha, Maharashtra has a bulk of experience in domestic cricket, including IPL.
The 26-year-old plays for Vidarbha and has six Ranji games to his name. To go with that, Darshan has been part of Gujarat Titans and Punjab Kings set-up in the past.
Although Darshan never played for Punjab Kings, he featured in six IPL matches for Titans over the last three years where he picked up 6 wickets.
In List A cricket, Darshan has 49 wickets in 29 outings while in T20s he has 73 scalps in 47 matches.
Darshan was also previously picked for India U19 team for the youth Asia Cup but couldn’t make the World Cup squad.
Tripurana Vijay (all-rounder)
Born in Tekkali, Andhra Pradesh, young Tripurana Vijay has made steady progress in Indian domestic cricket.
The 23-year-old represents Andhra and made his Ranji debut in 2022.
Tripurana has 7 First Class games to his name where the batting all-rounder has 150 runs and 16 wickets to his name.
In the Mushtaq Ali opener this season, the offie picked 4 for 8 against Nagaland.
Tripurana has also played 6 List A and equal number of T20s where he has a combined 54 runs and 13 wickets.
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Manvanth Kumar (all-rounder)
Strong performances in Karnataka’s Maharaja Trophy helped Manvanth Kumar land a contract with DC at the 2025 auction.
The 20-year-old from Mysore got his first exposure in cricket at 12 and since then has flourished in state cricket.
In the 2023 and 2024 editions of the Maharaja Trophy, Manvanth picked 22 and 16 wickets respectively for Hubli Tigers and was even the Purple Cap holder before last season.
Manvanth hasn’t yet been part of Karnataka’s state team but has made the right noises in T20 tournaments that helped him get in the radar of DC.
Madhav Tiwari (all rounder)
Among the uncapped players, DC made an interesting buy in the form of Madhav Tiwari, who has been touted as one of the most promising desi quicks in recent times.
At the base price of Rs 30 lakh, Mumbai Indians too along with DC showed a bit of interest for Madhav at the auction, raising the paddle once, before the latter sealed him for Rs 40 lakh.
A clean striker with the bat, Madhav has made headlines with his pace bowling across Madhya Pradesh in the past one year.
The 21-year-old was born in Gwalior and represents Bhopal Leopards in MP League.
Vipraj Nigam (all-rounder)
Leggie Vipraj Nigam at 20 made his First Class debut for Uttar Pradesh this season in October.
Before being picked by DC at the auction, Vipraj had picked up 13 wickets against Bengal, Haryana and Karnataka in the Ranji trophy.
He also had a terrific UP T20 League where he was mighty impressive with the ball for Lucknow Falcons.
