IPL 2018 – Sunrisers Hyderabad Team Preview

Captain: Kane Williamson.

Coach: Tom Moody.

Home Ground: Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad.

IPL 2017 Result: 4th in points table.

Best Result: Winners in 2016.

Released: Tanmay Agarwal, Ben Cutting, Eklavya Dwivedi, Moises Henriques, Ben Laughlin, Abhimanyu Mithun, Mohammed Siraj, Mustafizur Rahman, Ashish Nehra, Naman Ojha, Vijay Shankar, Barinder Sran, Pravin Tambe, Yuvraj Singh.

Purchased: Shakib al Hasan, Manish Pandey, Carlos Brathwaite, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, T Natarajan, Basil Thampi, K Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Sachin Baby, ~~Billy Stanlake~~, Tanmay Agarwal, Shreevats Goswami, Mehdi Hasan.

Sunrisers Hyderabad is a team that hasn’t always been able to put up big totals, but have been extremely successful in defending low totals in the Indian Premier League. They’ve had some of the best death overs bowlers in the business, one of them being Bhuvneshwar Kumar. Bhuvi was one of two players retained by the Sunrisers, but the only one that will play.

David Warner was the second retained player but he will take no part in the 2018 Indian Premier League, being banned for 1-year over ball tampering charges. The reins of captaincy have been handed over to Kane Williamson, while the franchise has signed England’s Alex Hales as a replacement for Warner. SRH initially wanted Kusal Perera, but he surprisingly turned down the offer!

Like I said, the team has a brilliant bowling attack and they did everything possible at the IPL 2018 auction to make it even stronger, signing Billy Stanlake & Chris Jordan, and also the Afghan spin twins Rashid Khan & Mohammad Nabi. They paid an enormous amount of Rs.9 crore for Rashid, and why not? He picked up 17 wickets last year, with an economy rate of just 6.62! Stanlake was brilliant in his few games, till a finger injury forced him out of the season.

While I really like the team composition of SRH for IPL 2018, I do believe that David Warner’s captaincy was a major part of their success in the last couple of years. Him not being around will surely make a difference. However, they seemed to have picked a lot of in-form players at the auction, including Manish Pandey & Wriddhiman Saha; the latter recently smashed a century in 20 balls in a local T20 game!

Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad for IPL 2018:

Kane Williamson(c), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shikhar Dhawan, Shakib al Hasan, Manish Pandey, Carlos Brathwaite, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, Rashid Khan, ~~David Warner~~, Ricky Bhui, Deepak Hooda, Siddarth Kaul, T Natarajan, Mohammad Nabi, Basil Thampi, K Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Sachin Baby, Chris Jordan, ~~Billy Stanlake~~, Tanmay Agarwal, Shreevats Goswami, Bipul Sharma, Mehdi Hasan, Alex Hales.

I don’t want to sound like too much of a critic but Yusuf Pathan’s numbers have been dropping at the IPL over the years. Even though he has always been a part of the playing eleven for Kolkata Knight Riders, SRH have a lot of suitable replacements and he may see out a few games from the bench this season.

Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad for IPL 2018:

Keep watching our Cricket Scoops space for more cricket and IPL related content!