You know how it feels to finally get your act together, but only to find out the party is over? That seems to be the story of Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2023. Just when the Sunrisers were beginning to look like a team with some fire in their belly, the campaign was already slipping out of their grasp. Their last two matches showed glimpses that the team could still be salvaged, but cricket is about timing — and SRH just couldn’t find it this year. Fans imagined some firecrackers, but they just got a couple of sparklers at the end of the show.
A Batting Line-Up That Found Its Mojo Eventually
Let’s not paint everything in black, even though SRH’s batting certainly showed signs of life in the dying days of the competition. Heinrich Klaasen performed, more often than not; youngsters like Abhishek Sharma and Rahul Tripathi showed their potential with some strong performances too. But the main issue was that this happened after too many game losses down the line.
During the first half of the tournament, SRH’s top-order batsmen were looking as if they were still in pre-season mode. The numbers are reflective; they lost as many wickets in the first 10 overs as they did last year, but this time, they scored even less. That killer combination of slow starts and early dismissals meant the middle-order batsmen were always under pressure. It wasn’t until this last little stretch that the batsmen understood they could be more adaptable and aggressive at the top.
Spin: The Missing Puzzle Piece
One word: spin. Or the absence of it. In a season where teams like GT and MI were using their spinners like a chess grandmaster, SRH had seemingly decided the middle overs were irrelevant. Adam Zampa arrived with a reputation that figured at the elite level, but injuries and the lack of any faith in a plan meant we hardly saw him on the park.
What else could have been worse? 2023 pitches were certainly not set up for the belter hitters! Even on their ground, the SRH franchise seemed somewhat astounded that they weren’t receiving a flat belter every week! SRH thrived on high-scoring tracks – what they got were slow turners and dual-paced nightmares. Without a good quality spinner to manage in the middle phase, SRH kept leaking runs or failing to choke back their opposition.
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Too Rigid, Too Late
One major criticism by the pundits—and, in my opinion, rightly so—was that SRH was too set in their ways. Their game plan seemed to be: “Let’s do what worked last year.” Well, last year’s playbook doesn’t work if the conditions, opposition, and squad balance change.
There was little sign of proactive planning; instead of building a Plan B (or C), they just went with Plan A until it died. Even if you accept the philosophy of players like Klaasen and Markram, who can alter their game, the team’s strategy did not adapt fast enough. Meanwhile, other franchises cut, changed, and tinkered with their lineups off pitch reports and match-ups, SRH appeared to be on autopilot.
So, what’s the moral of SRH’s story this season? Improvement is good, but it is only good if improvement is made soon enough to matter. The Sunrisers Hyderabad did show signs of life, but then the IPL has moved on. Other teams are planning their runs to the playoffs, while SRH has work to do individually and collectively.
What remains to be seen is whether, in the off-season, they can return to a semblance of form, or even get out of the rut that is SRH. IPL waits for no man—and for SRH, that evolution needs to happen sooner rather than later. If you were in charge of their auction strategy, what would you change?
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