Delhi Capitals has taken a new step before the IPL 2026 starting from March 28 in Bengaluru. The franchise has appointed former Ireland all-rounder John Mooney as its new fielding coach.
John Mooney replaced Dnyaneshwar Rao and Anton Roux as the fielding coach of Delhi Capitals after his tenure ends in 2025. Delhi Capitals will start the new season against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) on April 1 at the Ekana Cricket Stadium, Lucknow.
Delhi Capitals has appointed John Mooney as fielding coach ahead of IPL 2026.
Mooney joins an experienced coaching setup that already includes Hemang Badani as head coach, Munaf Patel as bowling coach, Ian Bell as assistant coach and Venugopal Rao as team director.
Adding some Irish steel to Delhi defense
Welcome, John Mooney! pic.twitter.com/P3KEndk1mj
– Delhi Capitals (@delhicapitals) 19 March 2026
It is also a special moment as Mooney will become only the third Irishman to feature in the IPL after Eoin Morgan and Josh Little – both of whom played as players in the world’s biggest league.
Also read: Before IPL 2026, RCB legend advised Abhishek Sharma to follow Virat Kohli’s style.
The Irish Independent quoted Mooney as saying: “The Capitals’ catch-to-catch percentage has dropped significantly over the last three or four years, and while I would need to maintain the overall fielding standards, the short term is really to improve their catching.
I didn’t bat or bowl very well, but my fielding was good. I made some contacts, and when I played another Masters in Dubai, my team coach was Hemang Badani, who is also the head coach of the Capitals.
John Mooney opens up about IPL contract and working with an international star
Speaking on the value of his two-month contract, Mooney said, “It will only be a fraction of the more than $500,000 he earns per season. The IPL comes with its perks, and one of them is money!”
On working with international stars like KL Rahul, Mitchell Starc and David Miller, the Irish star said, “The thing with a lot of top level players is that often they reach a stage in their career where they assume that everything will fall into place on the night.
But if you don’t pay attention to body and head position and the fundamentals of footwork, you’ll miss opportunities when under pressure. At the end of any tournament you can look at the statistics, and usually the teams with better fielding win.
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Who is John Mooney?
John Mooney is not new to coaching at the international level. Before joining Delhi Capitals, the former Ireland player served as Afghanistan’s fielding coach from 2018 to 2019. This was the period when Afghanistan played its first Test match in India.
Later, in 2019, he also worked with the West Indies men’s team. Mooney has also been working as a temporary coach with the Ireland women’s team since January this year. Mooney holds Level 3, 2 and 1 coaching certificates from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). Hence, he provides good coaching experience to Delhi from different teams and different levels of cricket.
As a player, the former left-handed batsman played 91 international matches. He participated in three ODI World Cups in 2007, 2011 and 2015 and also played in two T20 World Cups. Overall, Mooney played 64 ODIs and 27 T20 matches for Ireland between 2006 and 2015.
He has more than 1100 runs and around 60 wickets to his name in international cricket. His biggest moment came at the 2011 World Cup, where he scored the winning runs in Ireland’s famous victory over England in Bengaluru.