Although the city of Nawabs, Hyderabad, is not as cricket crazy as other cities like Kolkata, Mumbai or Bangalore, their Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), have quite successfully managed to pull the thousands of fans into the stadium when they play at home at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium. It is the second side representing Hyderabad in the T20 league with Deccan Chargers being the team playing the inaugural edition to 2012. After Deccan Chargers pulled out of the tournament, Sunrisers Hyderabad joined the fray by retaining 20 players of the previous team. However, unfortunately, like Deccan Chargers, Sunrisers Hyderabad are yet to lift the coveted trophy. READ: Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in IPL 2016: Know your team
While Sunrisers managed to reach the playoffs in their first edition in 2013, they failed to do so in the next two years. The moment David Warner touched the ropes while trying to catch in their fixture against Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) which saw RCB qualify for the playoffs might be still fresh in the minds of Hyderabad’s players and fans. RCB required 14 off the final over with Virat Kohli on strike. After smashing two fours in the first two balls, Kohli went for a big one. Warner began to celebrate after taking the catch at the boundary, not seeing he had back-peddled. That loss meant Hyderabad had to beat Mumbai in the next match which they didn’t and were knocked out of IPL.
Captain: Warner is the current skipper of Sunrisers Hyderabad. He is the fifth player to lead this side after Kumar Sangakkara, Cameron White, Shikhar Dhawan and Darren Sammy. Under Warner’s captaincy, Hyderabad won 7 matches from the 14 they had played with Warner being Player of the Match four times. He was even the top-scorer of last season with 562 runs from 14 innings, winning the Orange Cap; this shows the pressure of captaincy clearly has not affected his play.
Coaching Staff: Hyderabad has some prominent faces in their coaching camp with the likes of Tom Moody, Muttiah Muralitharan, Simon Helmot and VVS Laxman. While Moody heads the coaching management for the ‘Orange Army’, the bowling department is under the experienced hands of the Sri Lankan legend. The young players have the privilege of being guided by Laxman and Krishnamachari Srikkanth. Pressure can be a problem for them seeing the IPL platform is a huge moment for these youngsters to play with and against some big international stars. READ: Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2016: Know your team
Star players: The T20 specialists who have enough international experience in the Hyderabad camp are Warner, Trent Boult, Kane Williamson, Dhawan and Eoin Morgan. Along with these the domestic players who provide equal support are Naman Ojha, KL Rahul and Karn Sharma. While Warner is an international vice-captain, Morgan leads England’s ODI and T20I sides, and Williamson is set to lead New Zealand across formats with Brendon McCullum retiring after their ongoing home series against Australia.
Hyderabad’s finishes (By season):
Year
Played (No)
Won
Loss
Tied
SR (%)
Finishing position
Summary
2013
17
10
7
0
58.82
4th
Play-offs
2014
14
6
8
0
42.86
6th
Group Stage
2015
14
7
7
0
50
6th
Group Stage
By opposition:
Opposition
Span
Matches
Won
Lost
Tied
NR
SR(%)
Chennai Super Kings
2013–15
6
2
4
0
0
33.33%
Delhi Daredevils
2013–15
6
5
1
0
0
83.33%
Kings XI Punjab
2013–15
6
4
2
0
0
66.66%
Kolkata Knight Riders
2013–15
6
2
4
0
0
33.33%
Mumbai Indians
2013–15
6
2
4
0
0
33.33%
Pune Warriors India
2013–13
2
2
0
0
0
100.00%
Rajasthan Royals
2013–15
7
3
4
0
0
42.85%
Royal Challengers Bangalore
2013–15
6
3
3
0
0
50.00%
Total
2013–15
45
23
22
0
0
51.11%
Retained players: This franchise surprised everyone when they had released the likes of Dale Steyn, Hanuma Vihari and Kevin Pietersen last year. Hyderabad has the second-highest funds at the moment among the other sides after Delhi Daredevils. Hyderabad can spend upto 30.15 crores after they released nine players.
Here is the list of players retained by Hyderabad: Ashish Reddy, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Bipul Sharma, Karn Sharma, KL Rahul, Naman Ojha, Parvez Rasool, Ricky Bhui, Shikhar Dhawan, Siddharth Kaul (all India), David Warner, Moises Henriques (both Australia), Eoin Morgan (England), Kane Williamson and Trent Boult (both New Zealand).
(Sakshi Gupta, a reporter with CricketCountry, is a sports fanatic whose mantra in life is “do only what you enjoy.” Her Twitter handle is @sakshi2929)
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookies
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.