Picking a combined Men-Women DC playing XI ahead of the 2025 season ft. KL Rahul, Jemimah Rodrigues

While the Women's Premier League starts on Friday, February 14, in Vadodara, the Indian Premier League is expected to begin sometime in March. Moreover, the 2025 ICC Champions Trophy also gets underway this month, taking cricket fever to its peak in the Indian subcontinent.

The women's T20 league will see top cricketers compete for one of the highest honors in franchise cricket, followed by their male counterparts. One of the teams to look forward to in both tournaments is Delhi Capitals, owned by JSW Sports.

While the women's team of the franchise is led by Australian Meg Lanning, the men's side will reportedly be captained by Axar Patel, who has been with the franchise since 2019. We do not usually allow for speculation in our daily business but with copious amounts of cricket about to come our way, we decided to try our hands at it anyway.

In this piece, we pick a speculative Delhi Capitals XI, comprised of their men and women players.

Top order: Meg Lanning, Shafali Verma and Jemimah Rodrigues

Meg Lanning and Shafali Verma will open the innings for DC in this hypothetical team, with the elegant Jemimah Rodrigues slotted to come in at number three. Lanning and Verma are expected to get the Capitals off to a good start, with the former anchoring the innings and the latter providing the fireworks.

Lanning will be asked to lead this team given her massive experience in the sport. Verma, who can also roll her arm over, will come in handy when DC are bowling. Rodrigues, coming in at number three, will be expected to rotate the strike quickly and build on the momentum.

Middle order and wicketkeeper: KL Rahul, Marizanne Kapp, Karun Nair and Annabel Sutherland

KL Rahul, Karun Nair, Marizanne Kapp and Annabel Sutherland will form the middle order of this DC side. Rahul will be the designated wicketkeeper and will come in at number four.

South Africa all-rounder Marizanne Kapp, among the best in the world, will walk out to bat at number five and provide the team with the ideal balance of rotating the strike and using the long handle to perfection.

Nair, who has been in excellent form this domestic season, and ended the Vijay Hazare Trophy as its highest run-getter (779 runs at 389.50), will be expected to continue his dominance in the shortest format of the game as well.

Sutherland is known to hit the ball a long way and will be the third overseas player in this XI. She will also be the second all-rounder alongside Kapp. She will bat at number seven and provide skipper Lanning handy overs with the ball.

Bowlers: Axar Patel, Arundhati Reddy, Mitchell Starc and Kuldeep Yadav

The bowling department will comprise of Axar Patel, Arundhati Reddy, Mitchell Starc and Kuldeep Yadav. Since the team already has two pace-bowling all-rounders in Kapp and Sutherland, only two out-and-out seamers have been selected in Reddy and Starc. The latter, the team's fourth overseas player, will naturally take the new ball.

Reddy will share the new ball with Starc, and come in useful with the bat as well. She is a decent bowling all-rounder who can stand up with the bat when the going gets tough. The same goes for Patel, whose recent form with the bat in India's home series against England has been the talk of the town.

In the two ODIs played so far, Patel has bagged scores of 52 and 41*, and is in pristine form. However, with a lot of established batters above him, the Gujarat left-arm spinner will be asked to play at number eight here. He, alongside Yadav, will helm the spin-bowling department for this team.