The Delhi cricket team represents the synonymous region and is regarded as one of the top first class teams in India. The team plays its home matches at the Feroz Shah Kotla Ground. It forms a part of the North Zone team in the Duleep and Deodhar trophies.
Performance in Ranji Trophy
Till date, Delhi has won the Ranji Trophy 7 times and has finished runner up on equal number of occasions. It has won the title in the following seasons:
- 1978-79
- 1979-80
- 1981-82
- 1985-86
- 1988-89
- 1991-92
- 2007-08
It has finished as the second best on these years:
- 1976-77
- 1980-81
- 1983-84
- 1984-85
- 1986-87
- 1989-90
- 1996-97
The Delhi team has also 6 Irani Trophy matches till date and won only twice.
Leading Players
When you speak of former Delhi cricketers Ajay Jadeja is one name that instantly comes to mind. He was born on February 1, 1971 at Jamnagar, Gujarat in a Rajput family and is related to the rulers of Nawanagar. He played 15 tests and 196 one day matches for India in the period between 1992 and 2000. His record in test matches is modest with 576 runs at an average of 26.18 and 4 half centuries. His one day record, where he got his maximum opportunities to represent the country, are more startling with 5359 runs at an average of 37.47 and 6 centuries.
Jadeja was well known for his energetic batting and quick hitting at the death overs in the limited overs matches as well as for his athletic fielding in the arc between cover and point. Together with Mohammed Azharuddin and Robin Singh, he was one of the finest fielders for India in the 90s. It needs to be noted that he has also represented Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir and Rajasthan in Ranji Trophy cricket.
Ajay Sharma was one of the leading run getters in domestic cricket with 10,120 runs at an average of 67.46 from 129 matches. With regards to his first class average he is 4th on the all time list among batsmen who have played at least 50 first class matches and is preceded by greats like Sir Donald Bradman, George Headley and Vijay Merchant.
Following are the other well known players that have represented Delhi in first-class cricket:
- Amit Bhandari
- Manoj Prabhakar
- Arun Lal
- Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi
- Ashok Gandotra
- Mohinder Amarnath
- Atul Wassan
- Nikhil Chopra
- Bishan Singh Bedi
- Prakash Bhandari
- Chetan Chauhan
- Rahul Sanghvi
- Chetan Sharma
- Rajinder Pal
- Gursharan Singh
- Rakesh Shukla
- Kapil Dev
- Ramesh Saxena
- Kirti Azad
- Sanjeev Sharma
- Kumar Indrajitsinhji
- Surinder Khanna
- Madan Lal
- Vijay Dahiya
- Man Sood
- Vivek Razdan
- Maninder Singh
