SEASON REVIEW
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After a sedate start, it looked like Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) had found their feet and were set to ease into the playoffs without much trouble. Their five wins in a row briefly masked the holes they had but after few moments of glory, SRH fell hard and eventually, it turned out yet another season to forget.
Since their maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) title in 2016, SRH have made it to the playoffs on every single occasion barring their 2021 season where they finished last and even now, things do not seem to be too peachy.
While David Warner’s future was written in the stars after he was not just stripped of his captaincy last year, but did not feature in the last few matches, SRH failed to retain some of the big guns like Rashid Khan and Jason Holder to further dent them.
Instead, they decided to invest in young Indian players like Umran Malik, Abhishek Sharma, Shahrukh and Abdul Samad to name a few. In After SRH’s final game against Punjab, head coach Tom Moody acknowledged that Samad was unlucky to miss out, indicating that he remains part of their plans for the upcoming seasons.
In the end, SRH finished with just 12 points from their 14 matches, an underwhelming performance. But they did show glimpses of what they are capable of and we could expect them to put up a better show in the upcoming season.
Retained players failing to fire
SRH retained Williamson, Samad and Umran Malik ahead of the IPL 2022 auction. However, it was a season to forget for Williamson, while Samad did not get enough chances to prove himself. Instead, SRH opted to go in with Shashank Singh, who played a few cameos and was among the key figures in the team that won five in a row. While SRH showed patience with Williamson and Malik – something you need to show with retained players – the same courtesy was not extended to Samad.
What about Umran Malik?
The pressure of being a retained player hits differently and if things were to go by the first five matches, many would have called it a huge mistake. He had pace – raw pace – but what was lacking is his direction and his change of pace was practically non-existent. Dale Steyn put in some good work with the fast bowler.
“I watched him making his debut in the IPL 2021 and was blown away by how quick he was and how consistently fast he was. It’s a whole different thing when you are at the nets watching bowl in a game than you watch him on TV. He is so much faster in real life,” Steyn told Cricket.com.
Brick by brick, Steyn moulded Umran into a serious threat with subtle changes in his bowling action that helped him use the crease and his action better. Umran turned into SRH’s match-winner on more than one occasion. His contribution directly affected the team’s success or failure.
Ordinary Williamson
Keeping his captaincy aside, Kane Williamson had an ordinary campaign by his high standards. He scored just 216 runs at 19.63 and scored them at a strike-rate of 93.50. His poor show with the bat is the reason behind SRH’s poor record in the powerplay this season.
SRH’s managed to score at just seven in the first six overs – the lowest – and scored a boundary every six deliveries in the phase, with only RCB (6.1) below them in the list. This put a lot of pressure on the middle-order, who often were entrusted with rebuilding the innings.
What worked for SRH?
Their middle-order consisting of Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram and Nicholas Pooran delivered on most occasions when the openers failed to provide any sort of impetus. The trio scored over 300 runs this season, with Tripathi breaching the 400-run mark for the first time in an IPL season, all while maintaining a healthy strike-rate throughout.
They have scored over 50% of the runs for SRH this season, ensuring that there was some sort of respectability in the batting department. Thanks to the trio, SRH middle-order (3-7) runs at an average of 31 and lost a wicket every 21.6 deliveries, which is the best in the league, after Gujarat Titans (GT), for whom the corresponding numbers are 32.3 and 23.7 respectively.
After starting off slowly, Abhishek Sharma completely overshadowed Williamson at the top, finishing as the leading run-getter for the franchise scoring 426 runs at a strike-rate in excess of 133. However, what went against him was his ability to convert his starts into significant scores. He scored in excess of 30 on eight occasions, but got past fifty just twice.
What about the bowlers?
T Natarajan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar came into the tournament with an injury cloud hanging over their heads. Natarajan went wicketless just twice in his 11 matches, but Bhuvneshwar seemed to have returned to his groove as the tournament ticked along.
They picked up 19 wickets between them at the death at 20.78 striking once every 12.68 deliveries. While Bhuvneshwar makes it to the T20I squad against South Africa, Natarajan has not been picked, with Arshdeep Singh being the only left-arm pacer in the squad.
Marco Jansen and Washington Sundar were decent in patches, but overall inconsistent.
Matches they should have won
With 16 required of the final over, which then went down to nine off two deliveries, Marco Jansen let Rashid Khan off the hook, smashing him for two sixes to seal the game for GT. SRH were in control at the end of 16 overs, with GT needing 59 from the final four overs. However, Rahul Tewatia and then Rashid played gem of an innings to deny SRH.
Another match early in the campaign that should have gone in SRH’s favour was their game against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the DY Patil Stadium. They needed just 50 off the final five overs with six wickets in hand with Nicholas Pooran well set and with big-hitters like Romario Shepherd to follow. However, they managed just 37 runs in the last five overs as Holder, Andrew Tye and Avesh Khan choked them out of the contest.
