Sunrisers Hyderabad, the Hyderabad-based franchise is the next team that we are going to talk about in our auction preview series.
Sunrisers Hyderabad was founded in the year 2012, i.e. they started their Indian Premier League journey in the year 2012 replacing Deccan Chargers. SRH is owned by the Sun TV group, a local TV channel in South India. Sunrisers Hyderabad played the final only once in 2016 and they won it by beating Royal Challengers Bangalore.
They have played average kind of cricket every year but have always punched above their weight and managed to qualify for the playoffs many times. The last two seasons have not been very good for them, but they would desperately want to change their fortunes this time around.
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s squad for IPL 2023 before the auction is –
Abdul Samad, Aiden Markram (overseas), Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips (overseas), Abhishek Sharma, Marco Jansen (overseas), Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Fazalhaq Faaroqi (overseas), Kartik Tyagi, T Natarajan, Umran Malik.
Sunrisers Hyderabad released a lot of players this time which included last year’s captain, Kane Williamson. They currently have only 12 players in their squad, out of which only four are overseas. Sunrisers Hyderabad is expected to be the busiest team in the auction room on 23rd December 2022 in Kochi, where the teams prepare their final squad for the next year’s IPL.
They can buy a maximum of 13 more players, including 4 overseas, and need to buy a minimum of 6 players to complete their squad. They have the highest amount of purse with them among all the other franchises (INR 42.25 crores). They would want to spend this money wisely as their team is just scattered in bits and pieces right now and the franchise owners and team management have a lot of hard work to do.
I don’t think we will be able to make a probable playing 11 out of just a 12-man squad but we can surely try and figure out the players who will most certainly start in their playing 11 from Game 1. Abdul Samad, Aiden Markram, Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and Umran Malik are the ones who will surely be a part of their playing 11.
Washington Sundar can be another player who can find a place in the playing 11 from the beginning. Sunrisers Hyderabad needs to find a good captain in the auction or they can think about one of Aiden Markram or Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who are very experienced international players and are sure-shot starters in their 11.
They don’t even have a wicketkeeper in their squad as they released Nicholas Pooran this time around. There is no proper spin bowler apart from Washington Sundar in their squad and their lower middle order looks completely empty.
Sunrisers Hyderabad has a lot of questions to answer and a lot of strategies to be made. It will be interesting to see how they perform in that auction room on 23rd December and what impact it has on their chances in the upcoming edition of the Indian Premier League.