The energy efficient and delay are the two important optimization issues in the mobile adhoc network (MANET), where the nodes move randomly at any direction with limited battery life, resulting in occasional change of network topology. In this article, a hybrid fruit fly optimization algorithm and whale optimization algorithm (FOA-WOA) is proposed for energy efficient with delay aware cluster head (CH) selection. The major objective of the proposed method is "to solve the problems of energy efficient with delay and develop a clustering mechanism". The performance of the hybrid FOA-WOA is evaluated based on packet delivery ratio (PDR), delay, energy consumption, and throughput. Moreover, the proposed method is analyzed with two existing algorithms, like ant colony optimization (ACO) and genetic algorithm (GA). The experimental results show that the proposed method attains 11.6% better than ACO and 1.8% better than GA based on packet delivery ratio, 57.6% better than ACO and 27.3% better than GA based on delay and 15.3% better than ACO and 36.4% better than GA based on energy consumption.