Purani Dilli 6 appointed wicketkeeper-batter Anuj Rawat as captain of the franchise ahead of the Delhi Premier League Season 3, which is scheduled to begin on 31 July. The decision was announced by the franchise on 28 July, three days before the opening match.
Rawat has prior T20 leadership experience, and the franchise framed his appointment as a fit between his profile and the demands of a short-format league played in compressed windows. In a statement carried by the Lokmat Times Cricket desk, Purani Dilli 6 owner Akash Nangia welcomed Rawat and described him as a proven performer whose composure, maturity and game understanding the side would lean on through the season.
Nangia added a second remark, saying the franchise has built a competitive squad aiming to win the championship. The two quotes set the public tone for the announcement: a captaincy pick justified by traits a captain needs in T20 cricket, and a franchise framing its roster as built to contend rather than to compete only at the margins.
The squad as published
Alongside the captaincy announcement, the franchise published its squad list for DPL Season 3. The full set of names, with Rawat marked as Captain, reads: Lalit Yadav, Udhav Mohan, Rajneesh Dadar, Rohan Rana, Aryan Gaur, Vanam Aggarwal, Ajay Ahlawat, Kush Nagpal, Digvesh Rathi, Yug Gupta, Kabir Sachdeva, Gaurav Saroha, Dev Lakra, Anuj Rawat (Captain), Samarth Seth, Mohak Kumar, Yash Kumar, Pankaj Jaswal, Harshvardhan Phogat, Arjun Rexwal, Lakshay Verma, Prince Mishra, Ashwini Chillar and Aditya Verma.
The squad mixes batters, all-rounders and a clear wicketkeeper option in Rawat himself. Lalit Yadav is the most established domestic name in the group, and his presence gives the captaincy choice a familiar middle-order anchor. The remainder of the list is built from players who have come through Delhi's age-group and domestic circuit, several of whom will be appearing in a franchise T20 league of this profile for the first time.
Why the franchise picked Rawat
Three things stand out about the appointment from a captaincy-fit angle. First, Rawat is a wicketkeeper-batter, which means Purani Dilli 6 will not need to burn a separate overseas or domestic slot on a wicketkeeper-captain pairing; the gloves and the leadership both sit with one player. Second, the franchise described him as a proven performer, and the language is consistent with a captain who has already handled a T20 leadership role rather than being promoted mid-tournament as a stop-gap. Third, Nangia's third-party remark framed Rawat's composure, maturity and game understanding as the traits the side will lean on through the season, which is a longer list of demands than a power-hitting or impact-batting role would attract.
For fantasy cricket readers, the cleanest read is that Rawat is a multi-role player: he scores with the bat, keeps wickets, and the captaincy credit alone can shift his selection percentage in DPL contests, particularly in contests where captain picks score double points. Where a fantasy platform already has DPL markets open, he is the most likely candidate in the Purani Dilli 6 line-up to carry the (C) tag on user teams.
What is confirmed and what is not
The 28 July announcement confirmed the captaincy appointment, the squad list and Nangia's two remarks. It did not publish a starting XI, a batting order, a vice-captain pick, a designated impact-player policy, or a match-by-match captaincy rotation plan. None of those details have been stated publicly yet, and they will arrive only when team sheets are released ahead of each fixture.
DPL Season 3 begins on 31 July. The competition window is short, and the build-up between this announcement and the first ball is narrow. Purani Dilli 6's first fixture, their opponents for the opener, and the venue are still the operational items a reader should look for next, not conclusions that can be drawn from the squad list alone.
What this means for the wider DPL picture
Captaincy announcements in franchise T20 leagues tend to arrive early, and the public window between appointment and tournament start usually shrinks as the squad's batting shape becomes clearer in the warm-up games. Rawat's appointment does three things at once: it locks in the wicketkeeper slot, it gives the franchise a single fielding and batting voice for the dugout, and it signals that Purani Dilli 6 want to compete for the title rather than treat the season as a development tour.
The Nangia quote about a squad built to win is the clearest published signal of intent. The other Delhi franchises will be reading the same statement, and the standard pre-season game of comparing captaincy announcements will start from here. For fantasy readers building DPL teams, the immediate practical value of this announcement is that Rawat is confirmed as Purani Dilli 6's captain, which means fantasy platforms offering DPL contests can be expected to populate his (C) status before their first match.
How fantasy readers can use this announcement
If you play fantasy on platforms that run DPL contests, three operational notes follow from the announcement. Lock Rawat into your Purani Dilli 6 fantasy XI as both the wicketkeeper and the captain pick once contests open; treat the rest of the squad as a depth chart rather than a confirmed batting order; and read the first team-sheet release, not the squad list, as the formal confirmation of any player's actual role in the XI.
Broader fantasy strategy on the DPL itself, including captain-pick weighting, contest selection, and the right mix of differential picks against a short league window, is covered on the Fantasy Cricket desk in the Fantasy Cricket editorial coverage, where the methodology and weekly captain-pick accuracy studies live alongside the news desk.
What to watch next
Three items will follow this announcement in the public build-up to DPL Season 3: the official fixture list and Purani Dilli 6's first opponent, the team-sheet release ahead of the 31 July opener, and the first naming of the captaincy structure if the franchise chooses to rotate leadership across the league. Each of those items will arrive in its own news cycle, and the news desk will cover each one in turn once it is officially confirmed.
For now, the public record is what was published on 28 July: Anuj Rawat is captain, the squad list is named, the franchise says it is built to win, and the league starts on 31 July. The rest belongs to the matches themselves.
Reading the announcement in the wider Delhi cricket picture
Delhi's franchise T20 league has spent the last two seasons as one of the more competitive second-tier T20 competitions in Indian domestic cricket. The DPL's appeal has been a blend of familiar domestic talent, age-group standouts looking for a platform, and a window that lets players carry form from the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy straight into a short franchise block. Purani Dilli 6's appointment of a wicketkeeper-captain who already has T20 leadership experience is consistent with that operating model: a leadership pick that doesn't burn a roster slot on a specialist captain and a role holder who can bat at three, four or five depending on the match-up.
The other Delhi franchises will read the same two-paragraph statement and draw their own conclusions. A squad framed publicly as built to win is a soft signal that Purani Dilli 6 are not treating the season as a development tour; the early-season captaincy appointment is a soft signal that the franchise wants the on-field voice locked in before the squad heads to warm-up games. Neither of those readings is sourced directly to the club's internal planning — they are the public-record read of the words Nangia chose to put on the record on 28 July.
How the squad shapes up before the XI is set
Reading the published 24-player squad by role, three things stand out beyond the captaincy headline. First, the batting core is built around Lalit Yadav, who is the most established middle-order name in the group, with Rawat slotted in as a wicketkeeper-batter who can either open or bat in the middle overs depending on match conditions. Second, the seam-bowling group is young: Rajneesh Dadar, Digvesh Rathi, Yug Gupta and Pankaj Jaswal are all early-career seamers whose DPL minutes will be one of the more reliable indicators of how their domestic trajectory is shaping up. Third, the squad is light on named spinners in the public release — Aditya Verma, Ashwini Chillar and Kabir Sachdeva are the players who profile as spin options, and how the franchise splits those overs across the powerplay, middle phase and death will be one of the clearer tactical storylines once matches begin.
None of those role reads translate into a confirmed XI. Squad lists in franchise T20 leagues in India routinely run to 22-25 names because they have to cover injuries, overseas-player slots and the impact-player rule; the published list should be read as the franchise's full player pool rather than the team that walks out on 31 July. The XI itself will be published by Purani Dilli 6 in their official team sheet before the first match, and that sheet is the only public document that confirms who is actually playing.
What this means for fantasy contest operators and users
Fantasy platforms that run DPL contests will start populating their player pools with the published Purani Dilli 6 squad from the moment the announcement becomes public. Captaincy status is the single most important field in a fantasy user-team: a captain pick scores double points, so a confirmed captaincy immediately changes the selection-percentage math for everyone who plays DPL contests on those platforms. For Purani Dilli 6 fantasy teams, Rawat should be locked into both the wicketkeeper slot and the (C) slot from contest one.
The rest of the fantasy read is more nuanced. A short-window franchise T20 league rewards players who carry recent red-ball form into the shortest format, players who are comfortable batting up and down the order, and bowlers who can deliver at the death. The published Purani Dilli 6 squad gives fantasy users the full pool to work with; the actual XI each match will be the operational input that matters once games begin.
A short editorial note on how we cover this
Our news desk writes captaincy announcements as news, not as promotional coverage. The facts in this article are taken from the Lokmat Times Cricket desk report that carried the franchise statement on 28 July: the captaincy, the squad list, the two Nangia quotes, and the start date of the season. We have not added an XI, a batting order, a fantasy captain pick verdict, or any speculative read of how the season will unfold. Those items will arrive in their own news cycle once they are officially confirmed by the franchise or by the playing conditions of the matches themselves.
For the rest of the build-up to DPL Season 3 — fixtures, team sheets, match reports, and any policy updates from the league or from individual franchises — the news desk will publish each update as it is officially confirmed, with the same standard of source attribution that applies to every other story on this site.