Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Report Card: Decoding their journey in IPL 2022

ByNishad Bapat, SportsCafe Editor

05/29/2022

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Since winning their only IPL title in 2016, Sunrisers Hyderabad have been striving to add to their trophy cabinet. Post the mega auction, most people had SRH finishing at the bottom of the table considering their roster but the team shocked one and all by marginally missing out on a playoff spot.

Ahead of the start of the IPL 2022, Sunrisers Hyderabad retained Kane Willamson, Abdul Samad, and Umran Malik. Kane Williamson was appointed as the skipper of the team. For SRH, Nicholas Pooran and Washington Sundar were the most expensive buys in the auction with a sum of Rs 10.75 Crore and 8.75 Crore respectively. The team also bought Aiden Markam and Abhishek Sharma to strengthen their all-rounder’s section. By the end of the mega auction, SRH were looking like a weak side, especially their bowling unit.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar was out of form before the start of the tournament. T Natarajan was returning from an injury and Umran Malik lacked experience of playing the competitive level of cricket played in IPL. There were other inexperienced bowlers like Kartik Tyagi in the team and that made their bowling unit vulnerable. The team also lacked an experienced spinner as they had Jagadeesha Suchith, Washington Sundar, and Shreyas Gopal in the squad. Considering all these factors they were expected to finish at the bottom of the table.

The team outperformed the expectations and had a chance to reach the playoffs. However, Only one win in the last five games resulted in their exit from the tournament in the league stage.

In the following write-up, we analyze their performance in IPL 2022 on several metrics.

Batting - C

SRH have scored the lowest number of runs in the IPL 2022. They have scored 2084 runs from 1565 balls. The team scored 148 runs per innings on average. They batted with a strike rate of 133.16 in the tournament which is average. The team is placed in the bottom half in almost all of the batting metrics. So considering overall batting SRH’s numbers are not very impressive.

Now, the first innings performance will show us a clear picture as the team gets to play all the 20 overs and doesn’t have an idea of the par score or how many runs they are supposed to score. SRH have batted first only three times scoring 510 runs from 360 balls. The team batted with a strike rate of 141.67 in the first innings. They have also scored 170 runs per innings on an average which is a good number.

They won only one match out of three while batting first. But in the defeat against GT the contest went down the last ball for a close finish.

Powerplay - C

The first six overs usually sets a base for the team to post a decent total. For SRH, Abhishek Sharma, Kane Williamson, and Rahul Tripathi were the top three and they used to play in the powerplay most of the time. SRH scored 551 runs in the powerplay with a poor average of 39 runs per innings. The team also hit only 14 sixes in the powerplay which is the second least in the tournament.

SRH have scored the least runs in the powerplay showing the lack of intent at the top in the first six overs.

Death Overs - C

SRH have disappointing numbers in death overs as well. They have scored 549 runs from 347 balls in death overs. They have scored 42 runs per innings which is a very low count in the slog overs. The team have a strike rate of 158.21 in death overs which is the second least in the tournament.

These numbers suggest that there was a lack of attacking intent at the back end and the lack of a power-hitter or finisher except for Nicholas Pooran might be the reason behind it.

Bowling - C

SRH picked 86 wickets in the tournament and are seventh in the list of overall teams. They were the most expensive bowling unit with an 8.90 economy. They conceded 172 runs per innings which depicts the tendency to leak runs.

Except for Bhuvneshwar Kumar, most of the bowlers were expensive throughout the tournament.

Powerplay - C

SRH picked 21 wickets in the powerplay and are seventh on the list of teams taking most wickets in the first six overs this season. They have an economy of 7.89 which is the fourth-highest in the powerplay this season so far. They leaked 47 runs per innings in the powerplay which is a decent record. The team conceded only 68 boundaries and the count is only more than MI and DC.

They lacked the wicket-taking ability. Bhuvneshwar didn’t receive support from the other end to keep a check on the economy rate in the first six overs.

Death Overs - C

Death overs are the most crucial thing for a side as that spell of overs might turn the game on its head. SRH were the second most expensive side in the death with an economy of 10.91. They bowled only 118 dot balls and lie in the bottom half of the list of teams bowling the most dot balls.

GT bowled in death overs while defending a target on two occasions. They were defending a total of 195 against GT and conceded 59 runs in the slog overs losing a last-ball thriller. The second game was against Mumbai Indians where they were defending a total of 193 and the team leaked 50 runs in the last four overs but won the contest by three runs.

Sunrisers Hyderabad report card for IPL 2022 © SportsCafe Graphic team

Captaincy - B+

Captaincy is usually measured by the number of wins and losses under a skipper’s leadership. However, leading the team also involves the correct choice of bowlers at the correct time and planning against the opposition batters. After losing their first two games, SRH were on a winning streak but a slump in form knocked them out of the tournament. The batting combination clicked well for the team and promoting Nicholas Pooran was a good captaincy decision. Pooran scored 77 runs in four innings while batting at number four and his two innings of 30+ runs came at a strike rate of more than 150.

Also, using Umran Malik as middle overs enforcer was a good captaincy decision. He picked 17 wickets from 14 innings at an economy rate of 8.66. All these factors make Williamson a good captain however, two moves from Williamson lower his rating slightly.

Williamson’s strike rate was a concern for the team throughout the tournament and he was unable to utilize powerplay while opening the innings. His strike rate has been only 76.4 in the first six overs. In my opinion, a more attacking batter like Rahul Tripathi could have opened the innings along with Abhishek Sharma and Williamson could have batted one down.

Rashid Khan was the lead spinner for SRH the previous season but this time around they had some inexperienced spinners in form of Jagadeesha Suchith, Washington Sundar, and Shreyas Gopal. The captain was not able to use the spinners effectively and back them. Sundar was the main spinner of the team and he scalped only six wickets for them. Suchith played five games while Shreyas Gopal played only one match and the team was unable to find a replacement for Rashid in this edition.