It’s early days, but one can already see plenty of problems in the Sunrisers Hyderabad camp. They play Kolkata Knight Riders tonight at the Eden Gardens, but even though KKR lost their opener just like them, SRH appear to be the lesser team heading into the contest, no two ways about it.
The biggest problem today SRH is facing is that their regular captain, Pat Cummins, is not ready to play yet. He is recovering from a back injury and has decided not to play in the first few matches, but one hopes he doesn’t miss too many matches because the Indian Premier League (IPL) is all about building momentum, especially at the start of the season, and two or three defeats in a row could very well signal the end of the campaign sometimes.
Without Cummins, their bowling looks very weak, which means now their batsmen have to score more runs than usual. On good batting wickets, they have no other option but to score 230+ day in and day out. And for that, they need their top order to fire. Not just one of them but all three of them.
But the truth of the matter is, both their openers, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma, have not been in good nick of late. Head had a disastrous T20 World Cup by his high standards, and his poor returns with the bat were the reasons the Aussies couldn’t even make the Super 8s. Sharma although got two fifties in two important matches against Zimbabwe (Super 8s) and New Zealand (final), he was far from his best. He was so bad that some Pakistanis, led by Mohammad Amir, started calling him a slogger. Of course, to ridicule him.
SRH are heavily dependent on them, and if they, the opening duo, fail together again like they did against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in their opener, the match would be as good as gone. SRH were the ones, to all intents and purposes, who provided the blueprint for 250+ scores in 2024. Since then, most of the other IPL teams have learned that trick. So, they are all the more under pressure to score big in light of a weak bowling line-up in the absence of Cummins.
It will be an uphill task, but going forward, they must bat like Team India did in the final of the T20 World Cup, where their entire top-3, comprising Sanju Samson, Sharma and Ishan Kishan, fired.
Klaasen is also a major worry!
South African Heinrich Klaasen can’t be trusted too much. After he announced his shock international retirement last year, his status has changed. Playing international cricket is the ultimate level. It keeps players sharp, mentally as well as physically. And now that he is not part of it anymore, it’s unlikely he is the same player from two years ago who threw a big scare into opposition bowling units. The changed Klaasen status means much more pressure on the top order.
Kishan batted well against RCB, but since he is also captaining the side in the absence of Cummins, his workload is too much at present and if it continues, at some point, it’s also going to affect his batting. Cummins’ return soon is a must. Jaydev Unadkat, Harshal Patel, Eshan Malinga, David Payne and Nitish Kumar Reddy can be a good supporting cast, but at present, none of them appears able to lead the bowling attack. In the match against RCB, they all looked toothless as the defending champions chased down 202 just in the 16th over. Goodness gracious!
The long and short of it is, SRH’s top-order really has to come good until Cummins returns and makes things easy for them.
