Delhi Capitals (DC) have announced English leg-spinner Rehan Ahmed as the injury replacement for their wicketkeeper batter Ben Duckett, who officially pulled out of the IPL 2026 a month ago, on March 24.
Duckett had cited personal reasons for his decision and risked getting banned by the IPL for breaking the recently introduced rule that bars non-injury-related pull-outs of IPL seasons after getting selected in the auction. IPL rules allow teams to sign any available player (doesn’t have to be a like-for-like) who registered in the latest auction as a replacement, given the team follows squad-composition terms.
The replacement players can be retained the following season, too. DC seem to have also used the fact that player replacements aren’t
required to be signed in a spitulated period, thus giving themselves the time to access the team’s needs for the second half of the campaign.
“Delhi Capitals (DC) have picked Rehan Ahmed as a replacement for Ben Duckett for the remainder of TATA Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. Rehan, a right-arm leg-spinner, has played 5 Tests, 9 ODIs and 13 T20Is for England and has scalped 49 international wickets. He will join DC for INR 75 Lakh,” the IPL said in a statement.
Rehan has picked up 15 wickets in 12 T20I innings for England with a good average of 24.06 and an economy rate of 9.50. He has 85 wickets from 91 other T20s. The leggie can also bat in the lower-order, as he showed in his seven-ball 19* against New Zealand at the T20 World cup.
DC to change bowling combination?
Rehan will add more depth to DC’s bowling resources. Earlier in the day, it was confirmed that Mitchell Starc is set to return to the team after getting clearance from Cricket Australia.
That opens the way for DC to drop one of their overseas batters, likely Pathum Nissanka, for Prithvi Shaw, and replace one of the Indian seamers with Starc or Rehan, depending on the pitch conditions.
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