IPL 2018: Team Preview – Sunrisers Hyderabad – A new sunrise awaits for SRH with a new captain

Champions in 2016, top 4 in 2017, Sunrisers will be targeting another successful year in IPL 2018.

Sunriser Hyderabad will be hoping for a repeat of this moment

IPL 2016 winners Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) has always been the team to watch out for. Since handing over the captaincy to David Warner, SRH turned a new leaf in their IPL chapter and started finishing off in the top four regularly.

However, this time they will be without David Warner, who was suspended from the Indian Premier League in the aftermath of the ball tampering incident in South Africa. SRH named Kiwi Kane Williamson as their new captain and with a new look team, SRH is eager to prove that they are the best, even without their regular captain.

In the auctions, SRH favored to buy their core players and had retained David Warner and Bhuvneshwar Kumar before the auction. In the auction, they went after Manish Pandey and bought him for a whopping INR 11 crores. Shikhar Dhawan was retained using the RTM card for 5.2 crores.

Kane Williamson, Shakib-Al-Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Basil Thampi, Sandeep Sharma and Siddarth Kaul were some strong players that SRH managed to grab in the auction. They bought Wriddhiman Saha and Sreevats Goswami as their wicketkeepers and also acquired Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan using the RTM and Mohammad Nabi in the auction.

They acquired foreign fast bowlers Billy Stanlake and Chris Jordan for near their base prices and have formed a formidable unit for the IPL 2018 season.

Let’s have a look at the strengths of Sunrisers Hyderabad which can help them win the IPL 11

 

STRENGTHS

Kane Williamson will lead SRH this year in absence of David Warner | AFP

The biggest strength of SRH is that they have managed to retain much of their core players in the auction. Players like Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shikhar Dhawan, Deepak Hooda, Rashid Khan and Kane Williamson were instrumental in revitalizing the fortunes of SRH during the last few years of the tournament and will help them move forward in this season as well.

SRH also has a good mix of foreign and Indian all-rounders to bank upon. Shakib Al Hasan, Carlos Braithwaite, and Mohammad Nabi, along with Deepak Hooda and Yusuf Pathan are some of the biggest and hardest hitters of the ball and are handy in the bowling department.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar has won the purple cap twice in IPL | AFP

Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been amongst the top wickets takers in IPL and was the purple cap holder in IPL 2017 with 27 scalps to his name. He will be helped by the likes of Sandeep Sharma, Siddharth Kaul and Basil Thampi from India. Billy Stanlake and Chris Jordan will be welcomed addition to the lineup with their T20 experience.

SRH has the trump card with them in form of the most exciting wrist spinner in the world today, Rashid Khan, who was brilliant for them in the last season as well. SRH will bank on Rashid performing at a better level than the last time.

SRH also has one of the most talented Indian pace bowling lineups in Siddharth Kaul, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan and Syed Khaleel Ahmed, to assist Bhuvneshwar Kumar as SRH look for a repeat of IPL 2016.

Now let’s talk about some of the weaknesses of the Sunrisers Hyderabad team

 

WEAKNESSES

SRH will miss David Warner as a captain and as a leader | AFP

The biggest weakness for the SRH is the absence of their captain and their top run-getter David Warner. Warner topped the batting charts in IPL 2017 and was no.2 behind Virat Kohli in IPL 2016.

This also means that Shikhar Dhawan will have to become the aggressor now and get runs in the power plays. SRH also lacks big power hitters with consistent form. Though they have Yusuf Pathan and Carlos Braithwaite in their ranks, Pathan is past his prime and may not get much match time and Braithwaite is seriously inconsistent to be relied upon.

Another weakness is lack of a good foreign fast bowler. Bhuvneshwar Kumar will likely shoulder the majority of bowling, but in Billy Stanlake and Chris Jordan, you don’t have the kind of talent which a Mustafizur Rahman had, who took the burden of picking wickets in the death, easing the load on Bhuvneshwar.

 

BEST BUY OF THE AUCTION

Manish Pandey will be the lynchpin of SRH batting in IPL 2018 | IANS

Manish Pandey proved to be the best buy of the auction for SRH. They went for him aggressively and though they got him for a price too high for their liking, Pandey has the talent and skills to justify that price tag.

Pandey has surely cemented his place in the Team India middle order and his last few innings have been brilliant. He can score at a quick rate during the middle part of the innings and has the ability to hit the big shots when needed and SRH will want to form their batting around Pandey and Dhawan.

 

EDITOR’s NOTE

Sunrisers Hyderabad will find the going tough, but they have the talent and players to become champions again

The absence of David Warner is a telling blow for the team. Warner had molded the team into the always win mentality of the Australians, something that they will miss under the calm Kane Williamson.

SRH is good enough to qualify for the playoffs, but for some reason or the other, they might end up failing to do so, despite good performances.

SUNRISERS HYDERABAD COMPLETE SQUAD:
Kane Williamson (C),Alex Hales, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Manish Pandey, Rashid Khan, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Siddarth Kaul, Deepak Hooda, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Carlos Braithwaite, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Shreevats Goswami (WK), Mohammad Nabi, Chris Jordan, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan, Sachin Baby, Bipul Sharma, Syed Mehdi Hasan, Ricky Bhui, Tanmay Agarwal

 
 

By Jatin Sharma - 06 Apr, 2018

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