IPL 2019 | SWOT Analysis - Sunrisers Hyderabad

03/16/2019

There is a clear narrative on which SRH operate and despite having only one title to back their strategy, it is clearly a successful one. Their bowling has been the best among all T20 league teams in the world and that gives them a cutting edge that most teams in the league seem to lack.

As per standard T20 practice, teams basically splurge a lot of money on batsmen and impact all-rounders, and bowlers remain undervalued in the format that largely requires a lot of leg work. Sunrisers Hyderabad applied the bowling formula to success which was less explored by many and ended up forming a team that moves around their bowlers. In the 2018 IPL, the Hyderabad-based franchise regularly fielded Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shakib Al Hasan and Siddarth Kaul. It was regarded as the finest and potent bowling team in the league, and even after Billy Stanlake withdrew from the tournament with an injury, the team ending up reach the final despite the absence of their talismanic opener.

The team prided themselves on defending low totals and the scores of 132, 118, and 151 rendered safe for them. In doing so, they disrupted the par score notion altogether, which is no less than 146 in Indian Premier League over the 11 years of the league. The team managed to restrict the opposition to sub-150 runs 7 times in the league, which is four more than the next best teams Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals, who had done the same thrice. It is the idea of being so miserly with the ball that gave them a winning way, and the team franchise, bolstered by the return of David Warner, will hope that their batting will fire on all cylinders to make them the champion for the second time.

Strengths

Of course their bowling, and especially Rashid Khan. For other teams in the league, either their pace bowling unit is menacing or their spin bowling and for that, you need to only be cautious against two three bowlers so as to negate the threat. However, even though, the batsmen can somehow have a field day against the Hyderabad pacers, Rashid Khan, being as incisive as ever, doesn’t let them go away with the match. The Afghanistan prodigy bowls at a fairly rapid clip like Anil Kumble, and reading him at that pace is always going to be difficult. Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium has been helpful for the bowlers and if a couple of pacers started wielding the magic, then the team will be safe in the end.

Weaknesses

While their team managed to defend the less-than-150 total seven times last year, that will not always happen and the batting needs to complement to the bowling effort. In the form of Manish Pandey and Shreevats Goswami, they have two slow starters at the top of the order, and in case, Kane Williamson doesn’t move away from his scoring template, then it will be difficult for the franchise to find any sort of consensus down the order. The team will trust Shakib Al Hasan to be handy with the ball, but his worth with the bat is a very vague object to consider, for the fact that he finished with 239 runs in 17 games, averaging 21.72 last year. Do they have someone who can be as effective as him with the ball and be a little more handy with the bat?

Opportunities

The return of Vijay Shankar adds some strength to the top, especially after the all-rounder’s recent heroics for the Indian team. Shankar, coming straight from the national duty, is sure to be one of the first names on the team sheet and how the team is going to use him will be interesting. Also, the fact that Jonny Bairstow has joined the team, will the team contemplate to let him open with Warner, which means they can’t have the either of Carlos Brathwaite or Billy Stanlake in their line-up.

Threats

They let go of Shikhar Dhawan, rather they had to, as the Indian opener was apparently not happy with his relegation in the leadership group of the team. Now, they have to open with the combination of David Warner and Shreevats Goswami and this is something that doesn’t feel right. Warner hasn’t played any top-flight cricket in the last one year thanks to his involvement in the ball-tampering scandal, but the over-reliance of the team on him to deliver might prove dangerous in the long run.

Squad

Basil Thampi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Deepak Hooda, Manish Pandey, T Natarajan, Ricky Bhui, Sandeep Sharma, Siddarth Kaul, Shreevats Goswami, Khaleel Ahmed, Yusuf Pathan, Billy Stanlake, David Warner, Kane Williamson, Rashid Khan, Mohammad Nabi, Shakib Al Hasan, Jonny Bairstow, Wriddhiman Saha, Martin Guptill

SportsCafe Best XI

David Warner*, Shreevats Goswami, Kane Williamson*, Manish Pandey, Vijay Shankar, Shakib Al Hasan*, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, Rashid Khan*, Bhubaneswar Kumar, Siddarth Kaul