Best finish: Champion 2016
Last season: Eighth
Good and bad fortunes have visited Sunrisers Hyderabad in clumps. It recovered from a two-match loss with five wins on the trot before as many consecutive defeats halted its march to the playoffs last season. The 2016 champion failed to qualify for the playoffs in the last two editions after making it to the last-four stage five seasons in succession. Sunrisers will be led by a third different captain in four seasons with Aiden Markram taking over the reins from Kane Williamson, who succeeded David Warner in 2021. However, this time around, the Orange Army looks a balanced side capable of maintaining consistency and bucking the trend of seismic slides.
Strengths: Hyderabad has enviable depth in the batting department as Washington Sundar can be slotted in as late as No. 8. The additions of Mayank Agarwal and Harry Brook have raised the star quotient and given the team options in the top and middle-order. In Markram, SRH has a solid anchor who can lend stability in a line-up stacked with power-hitters such as Rahul Tripathi, Brook, Abdul Samad and Heinrich Klaasen.
Weaknesses: Sunrisers’ PowerPlay batting and death-overs bowling have some chinks. Abhishek and Agarwal can form an able left-right opening combination but they lack firepower in the PowerPlay. While Abhishek strikes at 131.88 in the first six overs, Agarwal has scored at just over 121 in the PowerPlay. With Bhuvneshwar Kumar’s death-bowling ability on the wane and Umran Malik and Marco Jansen’s limited experience in that phase in the tournament, Hyderabad will be dependent on T. Natarajan, who picks wickets but can leak runs at the back end.
Aiden Markram (captain): Fresh from leading Sunrisers Eastern Cape to the title in the inaugural edition of SA20, Markram will head into IPL 2023 with positive captaincy experience. He coupled his leadership skills with a creditable individual performance, scoring 366 runs at a strike rate of 127.97 and also picking up 11 wickets at a frugal economy rate of 6.19. In his first full-fledged IPL season in 2022, Markram amassed 381 runs for Hyderabad while striking at close to 140.
Sunrisers had the biggest purse ahead of the IPL 2023 auction and it spent a large chunk of it on England batter Brook, roping him in for Rs.13.25 crore.
Best overseas player - Harry Brook: Sunrisers had the biggest purse ahead of the IPL 2023 auction and it spent a large chunk of it on England batter Brook, roping him in for Rs.13.25 crore. Brook is redefining Test cricket, having scored 809 runs in 10 innings at a format-agnostic strike rate of 98.77 and was instrumental in England’s historic 3-0 series win in Pakistan. The middle-order batter is particularly severe against seamers and will need to contend with spinning conditions in India and transfer his red-hot form in Tests to white-ball cricket.
The tearaway pacer from Jammu & Kashmir, clocking above 150 kmph consistently, had a breakout season in 2022 with Sunrisers.
Best Indian player - Umran Malik: The tearaway pacer from Jammu & Kashmir, clocking above 150 kmph consistently, had a breakout season in 2022 with Sunrisers, picking 22 wickets in 14 matches, which earned him his ODI and T20I caps for India. Umran has proven himself as a middle-overs enforcer, with 19 of his 22 wickets last season coming between overs 7 and 16. He forms an impressive Indian pace trio with Bhuvneshwar and Natarajan and will hope to evolve as a bowler for all phases.
The all-rounder is coming off an impressive white-ball season with Punjab, where he was his team’s leading run-scorer and wicket-taker in the Vijay Hazare Trophy.
Best uncapped player - Abhishek Sharma: The all-rounder is coming off an impressive white-ball season with Punjab, where he was his team’s leading run-scorer and wicket-taker in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, scoring 302 runs and picking 12 wickets. In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, he ably took up the mantle of bowling with the new ball while also opening the batting. Abhishek was Sunrisers’ leading run-scorer last season, with 426 runs at a strike rate of 133.12.
Comments
SHARE