Du Plessis, who joined the IPL in 2012, has captained the RCB for the last three seasons.
For the Delhi Capitals (DC) in the 2025 Indian Premier League, Faf du Plessis will serve as Axar Patel’s deputy.
Du Plessis, who captained Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) till the end of the 2024 Indian Premier League, was released by the team prior to last year’s super auction and later purchased by DC for INR 2 crore (US$0.24 million). He was selected before another former IPL captain who relocated to Washington this year, KL Rahul.
A former captain of South Africa in every format, Du Plessis joined the Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in 2012 to play in the IPL. After CSK was banned from the IPL, he played for Rising Pune Supergiants for two seasons before returning to CSK, where he stayed until 2021. He stayed with the franchise till the end of the 2015 season. He was purchased by RCB at the 2022 auction, and he was granted leadership of the team after Virat Kohli resigned as captain before that season. Despite making it to the playoffs in 2022 and 2024 under his leadership, RCB has yet to win the trophy they have been vying for for the past 17 seasons.The 40-year-old du Plessis has amassed 4571 runs from 145 games in the IPL, averaging 35.99 and striking at 136.37. He is still playing franchise cricket; during this year, he played for the Johannesburg Super Kings in the SA20. When the teams begin assembling their teams for the Hundred’s next season, he might also be in high demand. Southern Brave, which is currently owned by the GMR Group, which also owns DC, is negotiating a deal to sign him.In an attempt to change their IPL record, DC restructured their team, firing Ricky Ponting and other members of their coaching staff in favor of Hemang Badani as head coach, Matthew Mott as assistant coach, Kevin Pietersen as team mentor, and Munaf Patel, Venugopal Rao, and Vijay Bharadwaj in leadership roles. Rishabh Pant, who had been captain until the previous season, returned to the auction and was later selected by the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), where he was appointed captain. This change also included Axar’s promotion to the leadership role. Rahul led LSG till the previous season.
