IPL Auction 2018: Sunrisers Hyderabad build winning unit ahead of IPL 11
After the conclusion of the mega IPL Auction, it is clear that only a few teams managed to cover every aspect. One such team is Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Over the past ten seasons, one of the secrets of winning the lucrative T20 tournament has been retaining the core of the team. Sunrisers Hyderabad have done that significantly well.
In David Warner and Shikhar Dhawan, they have one of the most formidable opening pairs in world cricket. Kane Williamson played some crucial innings last season and he will be expected to do that this time around as well.
Manish Pandey, who went for a whopping INR 11 crore, is expected to fill the void in the middle order that hurt them on quite a few occasions last season.
Shakib Al Hasan has to be a steal for the price he went for. The balance he brings to this side is immense. In Deepak Hooda, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, and Carlos Brathwaite, they have the finishers they lacked last season. They would have ideally liked to have retained Ben Cutting as well, but lost out to the Mumbai Indians on that front.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Rashid Khan, Sandeep Sharma, Siddharth Kaul form one of the best bowling units of the IPL. In addition, they have a plethora of backup options in Basil Thampi, Natarajan, Khaleel Ahmed, Mehdi Hasan, and Billy Stanlake.
Sunrisers have covered all the bases. They have necessary backups as well if their key players get injured. Ideally, they would have liked one more Indian batsman in the middle order, but it still looks a strong unit.
Complete squad of Sunrisers Hyderabad: David Warner, Shikhar Dhawan, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Ricky Bhui, Sachin Baby, Tanmay Agarwal, Carlos Brathwaite, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Deepak Hooda, Mohammad Nabi, Wriddhiman Saha, Shreevats Goswami, Rashid Khan, Bipul Sharma, Mehdi Hasan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Khaleel Ahmed, Siddharth Kaul, T Natarajan, Chris Jordan, Sandeep Sharma, Basil Thampi, Billy Stanlake
Now, it remains to be seen if they can carry their good work in the auction onto the field.
Probable playing XI: Shikhar Dhawan, David Warner, Manish Pandey, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Deepak Hooda, Carlos Brathwaite, Wriddhiman Saha (WK), Rashid Khan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Sandeep Sharma