Batting giving Sunrisers Hyderabad the blues
Top order woes for revamped squad sans Warner, Bairstow and Pandey.
It’s just two games into the season but Sunrisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) batting is already looking brittle.
SRH collapsed while chasing a mammoth 211 against Rajasthan Royals in their opener, eventually losing by 61 runs. In the last match, they looked on course for 170 set by Lucknow Super Giants before making a hash of it in the last three overs and going down by 12 runs.
After last edition’s disastrous showing, where they finished at the bottom of the table with just three wins, SRH decided to revamp their squad. They kept just Kane Williamson among the experienced players alongside Jammu & Kashmir youngsters Abdul Samad and Umran Malik.
Thus, some of the experienced players such as David Warner, Jonny Bairstow and Manish Pandey, who formed the base of their formidable batting line-up over the years, were let go. While they didn’t try to buy back Warner after the fallout both parties had last season, SRH did try to buy back Bairstow and Pandey but couldn’t at the auction. They also went toe-to-toe with Mumbai Indians for Ishan Kishan but failed to land him.
As a result, they are left with just skipper Williamson among the top batters. While SRH do have Rahul Tripathi ( ₹8.50 crore), Nicholas Pooran ( ₹10.75 crore) and Aiden Markram ( ₹2.6 crore)—all expensive buys—they are short of proven IPL performers in the batting department.
Also, by retaining Samad and buying Abhishek Sharma ( ₹6.50 crore) and Priyam Garg ( ₹20 lakh), SRH have shown that they want to invest in future. Those three have shown promise at different stages but are yet to convert it into something significant.
Because of his power game, Samad has been given the role of a finisher which is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of a 20-year-old. But for someone who has played 25 matches in the IPL, Samad’s returns have been poor. In two innings this season he has scored 0 and 4.
Given the opportunity to open in the last two games of 2021 season, Sharma, 21, had done well. He also batted higher-up the order in domestic limited overs tournaments for Punjab—No.3 in Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and opener in the Vijay Hazare Trophy—and did get fair amount of runs but the step up to a permanent opening spot alongside Williamson hasn’t yielded results. He scored nine off 19 balls against Royals and 13 off 11 balls against Super Giants.
It has led to the calls that SRH should rethink their batting line-up with Williamson opening with Tripathi, who is known to be a busy player and can hit big shots. Markram is another option to open with the skipper but of late, he has batted in the middle-order for South Africa. In his last international innings, he scored 25-ball 52 against England during the T20 World Cup.
Finishing the innings well has been SRH’s Achilles heel over the past few seasons and to get that sorted, they have bought Pooran to perform the role alongside Samad and fellow West Indian Romario Shepherd ( ₹7.75 crore). The West Indian keeper-batter Pooran had a disastrous outing for the Punjab Kings last season, scoring just 85 runs in 11 innings. The stage was set for him to take SRH home against Super Giants but he hit an Avesh Khan full-toss down the throat of long-off. Whether Pooran has it him to dismantle attacks—like Andre Russell, Liam Livingstone and Pat Cummins—remains to be seen.
Tom Moody, SRH Director of Cricket, wasn’t happy with the way team finished against Super Giants. “Look, I thought our batting was a considerable improvement from the first game. We got ourselves into a position to win the game. With three overs to go, we had two set batsmen at the crease and (we) were needing just to tick over 10 (runs) an over. So, you know, I wouldn't be pointing the finger too hard at the batting. I think it was just really our ability to finish the game at the back end was the critical difference between the two teams," he said, after the defeat against Super Giants.
While the bowlers redeemed themselves after a below-par outing in the opener, it’s the performance of the batters that will decide where SRH will stand at the business end.