Imran Tahir could hold the key to Sunrisers Hyderabad defending their trophy
The Sunrisers Hyderabad hustled their way to the 2016 IPL trophy on the back of some incredible batting performances by skipper David Warner and a cohesive bowling unit featuring Mustafizur Rahman, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra and Barinder Sran.
South African leg-spinner Imran Tahir was released by the Delhi Daredevils in 2016 after 3 indifferent years where he failed to win over the home crowd and eventually, the team management.
The Daredevils only played the leggie in four games last year. While explaining their reason to release the No. 1 ranked T20 bowler in the world, an official from the team said, “Tahir's performance last year has not been up to the mark. Also, the moment we use him, we exhaust an overseas quota. As far as Coulter-Nile is concerned, he also had fitness issues.”
The situation has worked out almost perfectly for defending champions Sunrisers Hyderabad.
The Sunrisers squad
Not many people tipped the SRH for glory last year but as the season progressed, it became clear to everyone that they possessed a very solid team.
Released players – Karn Sharma, Ashish Reddy, Eoin Morgan, Trent Boult, T Suman, Aditya Tare
Remaining players – Shikhar Dhawan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, David Warner, Moises Henriques, Naman Ojha, Ricky Bhui, Kane Williamson, Siddarth Kaul, Bipul Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Yuvraj Singh, Ben Cutting, Abhimanyu Mithun, Mustafizur Rahman, Barinder Sran, Deepak Hooda, Vijay Shankar
The Sunrisers are short in the spinners department with the left-arm orthodox slow bowler Bipul Sharma the only option.
What Tahir brings to the table
Midway through the 2016 IPL season, it became clear that a leg-spinner was almost a prerequisite for success for most sides. The likes of Yuzvendra Chahal for the RCB and Adam Zampa for RPSG showed the importance of a leggie in the squad.
Tahir has been a proven wicket-taker over the years with the South African side as well as the sides he has represented in domestic competitions.
T20 figures for Tahir in his career -
| Matches | Wickets | Average | Economy | Strike-rate | Best figures |
| 147 | 168 | 21.45 | 6.95 | 18.5 | 4/21 |
The only risk of playing a leggie is that in the quest of taking wickets, they often get taken for a lot of runs. Tahir has proved over his career that he can keep things tight when it matters, but also attack the batsmen at the same time.
The IPL auction
While the official list of players that will be sold at the auction has not been released yet, a look at the retained players by various teams clearly indicates that there won’t be too many spinners up for sale.
Imran Tahir, along with Brad Hogg and Pawan Negi are amongst the best options that will be up for grabs.
For the SRH, who released Karn Sharma, and lack a recognised spinner of any sort, Tahir will be the perfect pick to compliment their already strong bowling attack. They will have to fight though, as there will be some competition for Tahir’s signing, but they will make signing the leggie one of their top priorities.