What is the most recent update regarding Sunrisers Hyderabad?
Only a few teams like SRH appear to have improved their overall performance so drastically in 2024. Sunrisers Hyderabad SRH spent two-thirds of the previous cycle looking as if they did not have any direction to follow as they parted ways with David Warner. In the latter part of the cycle, SRH encountered Pat Cummins, which was quite a lucky chance for a lot of teams planning on making restarts. He arrived with fellow Aussie Travis Head and a coach (Daniel Vettori) he had already worked with and SRH were so mid as a team. For more Latest Sports Update, Click Here
Asserting dominance over an entire season, a fresh approach has been decided upon by SRH, bringing and utilizing new talent in the squad irrespective of the conventional batting formats. While emulating these changes, heads were shaking in disbelief of how extensively the PowerPlay periods meddled with batting preconditions during the first stretch of the finals since 2018. But with a total overhaul being put in place just before the auction, there is always the looming concern of how sustainable it would be, but with new rules regarding retention, SRH were able to keep most of their star performers.
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SRH spent a considerable fraction of their purse replacing experience with experience by bringing in Mohammed Shami and Harshal Patel to take over the slots of T Natarajan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. More importantly, SRH moves into 2025 season with what is arguably the most explosive top five of the tournament. With the new retention policy, SRH has four out of those five from the last tournament, and with Ishan Kishan coming in, it can get even better. Better the same could be what SRH is hurrying into the next cycle with old habits.
Full Squad
Pat Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Nitish Reddy, Ishan Kishan, Mohammed Shami, Harshal Patel, Abhinav Manohar, Rahul Chahar, Adam Zampa, Simarjeet Singh, Eshan Malinga, Jaydev Unadkat, Wiaan Mulder, Kamindu Mendis, Zeeshan Ansari, Atharva Taide, Sachin Baby, Aniket Verma
The best XII as things stand
Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Reddy, Heinrich Klaasen, Abhinav Manohar, Sachin Baby/Aniket Verma, Pat Cummins, Harshal Patel, Adam Zampa, Mohammed Shami, Rahul Chahar/Simarjeet Singh
Injury/Availability Concerns
SRH has already replaced their overseas seam-bowling all-rounder Brydon Carse with a fellow South African Wiaan Mulder. Cummins, who previously had an ankle injury and missed the recent Champions Trophy, is now fit to lead the team from their first game. Nitish Reddy, SRH’s find of 2024 turning out to be a INR 6 crore retention, has also passed fit after suffering a side strain during the T20I series against England in January.
The player with a point to prove is…
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Ishan Kishan: Since the end of 2023, Kishan has been drifting for quite some time now which has caused him to lose his India spot across all three formats as well as the central contract for 2023-24 that was announced last February. The fall down the pecking order has been swift and hard as he was also overlooked for the T20 World Cup winning squad of 2024. It’s not easy to get back up there and the climb is indeed difficult, but he has rejoined the domestic circuit with Jharkhand. A strong IPL season would raise his chances of being selected for the home T20 World Cup next year, especially with head coach Gautam Gambhir’s insistence on a left-right combination in the top-order.
Kishan and SRH is a relationship that the franchise has always wanted, and while it seems they rushed into it during the auction, it was a relationship that they were fond of for a long time. The pushed MI until the bitter end in 2022 and came short, but secured him last year and would now want to roll out the carpet for him to perform from the top.
A player who could see his stocks rise.
Abhinav Manohar – The Karnataka batter who has proven to be proven the case is a consistent middle-order performer could now be in for a long run with the rampant six smashing franchise. He was picked up by Gujarat Titans in 2022 although he was unable to get sufficient exposure to showcase his talent. In what turned out to be a bidding war during the IPL auction in November, he scored 550 runs in the Maharaja T20 League 2024, missing out by a mere 11 runs to Karun Nair at a staggering strike rate of 195.35. He also smashed 57 sixes over the course of the tournament which was the most in the tournament with Nair coming second with 30. A bit over a month after being signed by SRH at 3.20 crore rupees, he went on to score 79 runs off of 42 balls in the finals of the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
On overall form, he is perfectly placed to assume the batter’s position and do some more damage to the scoreboard after the previous batters. After averaging 8, 9, and 2 appearances over the last three seasons, Manohar is likely to get a revitalizing opportunity in a side who’s free-willed approach toward batting complements his style.
Fixture build-up and run-in…
The ‘Sunrisers’ have an early chance to accelerate as five of their first eight matches will be held in Hyderabad where they have registered 6 victories out of 7 matches, which is helping them aim to reach the playoffs in 2024. They start off with two home games and a third in Visakhapatnam which is just over an hour flight from Hyderabad. One of the two away games in the opening month is in Mumbai where the surface should be an asset but it’s also where they suffered four losses last season.
SRH has a packed season in April with a spaced out set of four games, however before that there are the first five fixtures each with a maximum of three days of turnaround time. In spite of some games having less breathing room due to the travel, SRH does get these longer breaks (4-5 days) during the season between two home games which aids in recovery. To finish off the season SRH travel to Bengaluru first where they wonderously smashed 287/3 in a 25-run victory last season and then to Lucknow where they did not play in 2024. SRH are also one of six franchises that will play two afternoon games (three for the others) at the start of the campaign, these are scheduled within the first eight days of the season.