Former Sri Lanka left-arm seamer Chaminda Vaas is set to join Indian Premier League franchise Delhi Capitals as bowling coach, Hiru News reported, carrying a Times of India report.
The franchise had approached Zaheer Khan and Anil Kumble for the role before turning to Vaas. “The franchise had approached Kumble as well but terms of appointment couldn’t be reached,” a source told the Times of India.
Part of a wider overhaul
The appointment forms part of a restructuring at Delhi Capitals after two difficult seasons under head coach Hemang Badani, director of cricket Venugopal Rao and bowling coach Munaf Patel. Yuvraj Singh has already been appointed batting coach.
ESPNcricinfo reported in June that Yuvraj and former India captain Sourav Ganguly were set for senior leadership roles at the franchise from the 2027 season, with Ganguly lined up as head coach — a report that falls outside our sourcing window and is noted here as background only.
A correction on nationality
The Times of India copy carried by Hiru describes Vaas as a “former India left-arm pacer.” That is wrong. Vaas played for Sri Lanka, not India, across a 16-year international career.
He remains Sri Lanka’s most successful fast bowler, with 355 Test wickets and 400 ODI wickets. His 8 for 19 against Zimbabwe in Colombo in December 2001 remains the best bowling analysis in one-day international history. He was part of Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup-winning squad and later served as the national side’s fast bowling coach, as well as holding coaching roles with Ireland and New Zealand.
Update (September 13): the Ganguly question answered, and Vaas is already at the camp
The Daily Mirror, carrying a Sportstar report, filed on the appointment at 1:20 pm and resolves most of what Hiru left open.
Vaas has joined the camp. Though the franchise has yet to make the appointment official, Sportstar’s sources say Vaas has already linked up with the team at its preparatory camp and trials in New Delhi.
The head-coach contradiction is settled. Sourav Ganguly will take over as head coach from Hemang Badani — so the “still searching for a head coach” line in the Times of India copy carried by Hiru does not hold. The Daily Mirror also places Yuvraj Singh as assistant coach, not batting coach as the Hiru copy had it, and adds a name neither earlier account carried: India leg-spinner Amit Mishra, one of the IPL’s most prolific wicket-takers, joins as spin coach.
The role and the season are named. The Daily Mirror puts Vaas in specifically as fast bowling coach, and dates the overhaul to the 2027 campaign, following a 2025 season in which Delhi failed to qualify for the playoffs. Hiru had referred only to “the upcoming season.”
The Daily Mirror correctly identifies Vaas, 51, as a former Sri Lanka international — 111 Tests and 322 ODIs for 355 and 400 wickets — and notes his 1996 World Cup-winning role and his subsequent coaching work with Sri Lanka and with franchises. It carries none of the nationality error described below.
Update (October 17): the old staff are formally gone, and Yuvraj’s title is settled
A month on, the Daily Mirror reported at 10.36 a.m. Colombo time that the overhaul has moved from reporting to announcement — though not uniformly.
The franchise has formally cut the old coaching group. Earlier in October, Delhi Capitals officially parted ways with their existing coaching staff ahead of the 2027 season, announcing it through their social media accounts. That closes the question this article left open about the fate of the outgoing group, if not about Munaf Patel and Venugopal Rao individually, who are still not named in any filing.
Yuvraj Singh is batting coach. The disagreement recorded in September — batting coach in the Times of India copy, assistant coach in Sportstar’s — is resolved in favour of the first: the franchise has announced Yuvraj’s appointment as batting coach. The Daily Mirror notes his World Cup-winning record for India in ODIs and T20Is and his mentoring of Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma and Prabhsimran Singh, and intermittent work with Rishabh Pant and Sanju Samson.
Sourav Ganguly is head coach, confirming the September account. He is currently JSW’s Director of Cricket, and the Daily Mirror adds that his only previous head-coaching role was at Pretoria Capitals in SA20 earlier this year, alongside involvement with the Delhi side in the Women’s Premier League.
Amit Mishra is still only expected. The former India leg-spinner is reported as set to join as spin-bowling coach — his first coaching role since retiring from all cricket last year — but the Daily Mirror does not report it as announced.
Vaas’s own appointment is still not official
The one name the headline carries is the one with the weakest confirmation. A month after the first reports, the Daily Mirror still writes that Vaas “is set to take over” as fast bowling coach. Delhi Capitals have announced Yuvraj. They have not announced Vaas.
He has, however, been present at the franchise’s preparation. The Daily Mirror places Ganguly, Yuvraj and Mishra at DC’s trials and off-season camp at the Just Cricket Ground in Bengaluru in August, and Yuvraj, Mishra and Vaas at a further camp and trials at a ground in Aerocity, New Delhi, in September — which corroborates the Sportstar account recorded above that Vaas had already joined up with the team.
The filing also sets out his coaching record: repeated spells with the Sri Lanka men’s team and the SLC academy, consultancy work with New Zealand and Ireland, and roles in various franchise leagues.
Not reported
Delhi Capitals have still not publicly announced Vaas’s appointment, and no report gives a contract length or a start date. Nothing says what happens to outgoing bowling coach Munaf Patel or to director of cricket Venugopal Rao, and no filing carries any comment from Vaas, from the franchise or from Sri Lanka Cricket.
Nor does any account explain why Yuvraj Singh’s appointment has been announced while Vaas’s, reported since September, has not.
