"Excited to come home" - Kevin Pietersen reacts after being named Delhi Capitals mentor for IPL 2025

Former England batter Kevin Pietersen has expressed his delight to rejoin Delhi Capitals as a mentor ahead of IPL 2025 season. The 44-year-old reminisced his time at the Delhi-based franchise and vowed to deliver his best in quest for a maiden IPL trophy.

He will now work with Hemang Badani (head coach), Matthew Mott (assistant coach), Munaf Patel (bowling coach) and Venugopal Rao (director of cricket).

Reacting to DC's official post on his appointment, Pietersen wrote:

"I’m so excited to come home to Delhi! I have the fondest memories of my time with Delhi."

"I love the city, I love the fans and I’ll do everything I can to support the franchise in our quest for the title in 2025!" he added.

This is Pietersen's first mentorship role in IPL. He represented Delhi Daredevils during 2012 and 2014 IPL seasons. He missed the 2013 edition due to an injury.

As a skipper, he led the franchise to two wins in 14 league games in 2024, when they finished at bottom of the points table.

Overall, the English batter played for five different franchise in the T20 league. The other four are the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), the SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH), now defunct Rising Pune Supergiants and Deccan Chargers.

Besides IPL, Kevin Pietersen has a wealth of experience playing in the Big Bash League (BBL), the Caribbean Super League (CPL), and the Pakistan Super League (PSL). The right-handed batter amassed 5,695 runs in 200 T20s.

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Axar Patel and KL Rahul top contenders to lead DC in IPL 2025

Axar Patel and KL Rahul are top contenders to lead Delhi Capitals in IPL 2025.

"We have a very young batting lineup. Both KL and Axar are going to lead them and are going to guide them," DC co-owner Parth Jindal said (via India Today).

The duo will be keen to turn the fortunes of DC, who finished sixth in the points table last season. The Capitals will begin their 2025 campaign against the Lucknow Super Giants on March 24.

DC squad: Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Tristan Stubbs, Abishek Porel, Mitchell Starc, KL Rahul, Harry Brook, Jake Fraser-McGurk, T. Natarajan, Karun Nair, Sameer Rizvi, Ashutosh Sharma, Mohit Sharma, Faf du Plessis, Mukesh Kumar, Darshan Nalkande, Vipraj Nigam, Dushmantha Chameera, Donovan Ferreira, Ajay Mandal, Manvanth Kumar, Tripurana Vijay, and Madhav Tiwari.