Exclusive: IPL 2020 Auction Strategy for Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)
All-rounders, the key focus area for SRH as we deep-dive into their strategy for IPL 2020 Auction.
After analyzing the auction strategy for 7 teams, we finally get to talk about the team, ‘Silent Killers’. It won’t be an overstatement, but Sunrisers Hyderabad have been one of the best performing teams alongside Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings over the last few years in the IPL.
It also shows from SRH’s retention strategy as they have retained as many players as Mumbai Indians have retained, 18. They are also the team to have released the least number of players, 5, of which one is a forced release.
Sunrisers Hyderabad’s retained squad before IPL 2020 Auction:
Total Retained Players: 18 | Total Purse Available: INR 1700L
Batsmen: David Warner, Jonny Bairstow (WK), Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Shreevats Goswami (WK), and Wriddhiman Saha (WK)
All-rounders: Abhishek Sharma, Mohammad Nabi, and Vijay Shankar.
Bowlers: Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Billy Stanlake, Khaleel Ahmed, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Shahbaz Nadeem, Siddharth Kaul, and T Natarajan.
Looking at the retained SRH team, their overseas contingent looks quite exciting with all 6 looking good to draft themselves in the playing 11; of course, if the rule changes.
BUT, even after retaining 18 players, they do have some gaps to address at the auction. So, what are these gaps, and how do Sunrisers Hyderabad address them? Let’s deep-dive into the strategy SRH can adopt for the IPL 2020 Auction.
#2: All-rounders the Priority
Sunrisers Hyderabad let go not 1, but 3 all-rounders ahead of the IPL 2020 Auction. While Shakib Al Hasan was more of a forced decision due to his unavailability, the other two- Yusuf Pathan and Deepak Hooda were very much expected due to their poor performance in the last two years.
To be honest, with the release of three all-rounders, the quality of all-rounders in the Sunrisers camp isn’t exciting. Except for Mohammad Nabi to some extent, the other two- Vijay Shankar and Abhishek Sharma do not inspire confidence for the shortest format of the game.
With INR 1700L in the kitty, this is one area Sunrisers Hyderabad would invest the most. While their overseas contingent looks promising, they should still look to hire an overseas all-rounder to cover up for Shakib Al Hasan.
The good overseas options that Sunrisers Hyderabad can look for include James Neesham, Glenn Maxwell, Colin De Grandhomme, Chris Morris, Sam Curran, and Marcus Stoinis. The available Indian all-rounders are mostly uncapped players, which SRH may look to buy as backups.
#1: Purchase Core Indian Batsmen
Sunrisers Hyderabad have predominantly been a Team driven by strong overseas players more than Indian players. In the last few years, most of their team’s stardom has been driven by David Warner, Rashid Khan, Shakib Al Hasan, Kane Williamson, Mohammad Nabi, and Jonny Bairstow.
Looking at their current setup, SRH have only Manish Pandey in their batting camp when it comes to strong Indian batting core. The other two, Goswami and Saha do not even look like the potential starters for the playing 11.
So, apart from the overseas all-rounder spot, this is one area Sunrisers Hyderabad can look to ramp-up. They can either look to buy Robin Uthappa or any of the potential uncapped players as their future bet.
The potentially uncapped batsmen include Baba Aparajith, Rahul Tripathi, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Priyam Garg, Rohan Kadam, Vishnu Vinod, Virat Singh, Dhruv Shorey, Shubham Ranjan, etc.
Apart from these, Sunrisers Hyderabad should also look to buy an Indian off-spinner as a backup to Rashid Khan. Currently, both, Abhishek Sharma and Shahbaz Nadeem take the ball away from the right-hander like Rashid Khan, and that would make their spin line-up monotonous.
Overall, If we had to select an ideal playing 11 for SRH including the gaps, it should go like this:
“David Warner, Jonny Bairstow, Kane Williamson/Mohammad Nabi, Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Indian Batsman, Indian all-rounder/Indian batsman, Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, and Sandeep Sharma”.
Thanks for reading the article! Which players do you guys think Sunrisers Hyderabad should look to buy at the IPL 2020 Auction? Do let us know in the comments.
ALSO READ: IPL 2020: The Most Expensive XI of the Tournament (Costs More than 1 Billion)
Adesh Kothari is the founder of AK4Tsay1 Cricalytics.
Cricket to him is like what ‘Football is to Lionel Messi’, ‘Singing is to Lata Mangeshkar’, ‘Dancing is to Michael Jackson’, and what ‘Acting is to Clint Eastwood’.
Besides his effervescent love for Cricket, Adesh is an MBA by qualification.
