New Delhi, Feb 24 (IANS): It seems all is not well between the Delhi & District Cricket Association (DDCA) and Delhi Capitals (DC) following the announcement of the IPL schedule earlier this week.

In a surprising turn of events, Delhi Capitals will not be playing their first two home matches in their hometown in IPL 2024, scheduled to begin on March 22.

Delhi have chosen to play their home matches in the first phase of the 16th season in Visakhapatnam, the organisers announced on February 22.

Speaking to IANS, a DDCA official said that they are clueless as to why DC is not playing in Delhi as the Arun Jaitley stadium is fully ready to host the matches.

“Delhi is all set and fine. God knows why they (the Capitals) are not playing here! We are hosting 11 matches of the WPL and we even told Dada (Saurav Ganguly, Delhi Capitals Director of Cricket), who visited the stadium after the WPL schedule announcement and we told him at that time also that everything will be done. IPL matches won’t get affected.

“But later, we don’t know what happened. We got to know about the news in the morning of the announcement of IPL 2024 schedule that DC will be playing in Vizag. Well, from our side we are ready but if the franchisee doesn’t want to…we can't help it,” the official added.

He went on to add that, “If you visit the stadium, we have green turf today. DC should answer as to why they opted for Vizag. DDCA has told the BCCI that we can host matches and there is no problem, but...”

Notably, the capital city will host the second leg of Women's Premier League 2024, which will be played from February 23 to March 17 in Bengaluru and New Delhi. 11 matches, including the final on March 17, will be played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in the second season of the WPL.

On Feb 22, the fixtures for the first 21 matches of IPL 2024 were announced by the Indian cricket board (BCCI). The schedule for only the first 17 days - from March 22 to April 7 - was announced with the governing body saying that the remaining fixtures will be announced after the Election Commission announces the dates for the Lok Sabha polls, scheduled to be held later in the year.

Rishabh Pant to lead

On a positive note, Delhi Capitals are gearing up for the upcoming season with Rishabh Pant likely to lead the team as the wicketkeeper-batter is all set to make his much-awaited return to competitive cricket for the first time since he suffered multiple injuries in a road accident in December 2022. David Warner led the team in Pant's absence last year, but the Capitals failed to finish in the top 4.