Led by the inspiring Meg Lanning in these editions, they took the bold call of leaving her out in the retentions. Instead, they held onto five players that form a solid core with three Indian batters and two overseas all-rounders in Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, U-19 World Cup winning India captain Niki Prasad and Australia’s Annabel Sutherland and South Africa’s Marizanne Kapp.

By sticking to largely the same core, they reinstated their faith in the foundation that has given them success. “If you look back over the last three years to the first mega auction, we did incredibly well with our strategy then and recruited a really strong squad of 18 players,” coach Jonathan Batty told HT.

“Over the next two years, we trimmed that and rejigged two or three spots each year. Last year we had the strongest squad of those three years. Having played some great cricket over those tournaments, we were keen to retain as many players as we could.”

Leaving out Lanning, who has led Australia to seven World Cup titles and Capitals to three finals, was understandably tough. As a result of retaining five players, they have a smaller purse remaining ( ₹5.7Cr) and have exhausted the possibility of using a right-to-match-card. DC have leadership options in Rodrigues and Sutherland but will make a decision on the captain after getting the best possible squad.

“All retention and release decisions are really tough. Leaving out Meg…that was one of the toughest decisions I’ve had to make in my career. I’d love to have retained 16 or 17 players going into this auction, but that’s not possible. You have to make difficult calls. But we’re really happy with the spread of talent we’ve retained,” Batty said.

Capitals have had the strongest squads but the silverware eludes them. They are, however, confident of their scouting process. They will be looking to go after exciting batters best suited for T20 cricket, wicket-taking bowlers and players who share the team philosophy – sharing success, enjoying winning together and supporting each other when things don’t go well.

“We’ve created a good environment for players to thrive, and we want more of the same,” said Batty.

“We have soul-searched after losing three finals. If you asked any player or coach three years ago whether they’d take three finals, they’d say yes. But we’re not happy that we didn’t win at least one,” he added. “The margins were so small — two finals became one-ball games. If a catch goes to hand, or we hit one more boundary, we probably win those. The margins in T20 cricket are tiny. But I’m very proud of what the players did.”

One thing is clear – Capitals’ have unfinished business and they are setting out to go one better this year. This time, it starts at the auction table.