“This is a huge lesson” - Aakash Chopra hints SRH erred in sticking to overseas skipper in Kane Williamson for IPL 2022
Former Indian batter Aakash Chopra reckons that the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) are paying a heavy price for sticking to an overseas captain in Kane Williamson for the IPL 2022 season. The 44-year-old stated that while it is very difficult to drop any skipper from the playing XI, things become trickier with a foreign captain (since only four overseas cricketers can be part of the playing XI).
Williamson has had a horror run with the bat in IPL 2022. Opening the batting, he has scored 208 runs in 12 matches at a poor average of 18.91 and a shockingly under par strike rate of 92.86.
The Kiwi legend will be under intense scrutiny when Hyderabad take on the Mumbai Indians (MI) at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Tuesday. Sharing his views about the game on his YouTube channel, Chopra opened up about the Williamson scenario and said:
“Abhishek Sharma is batting really well for Hyderabad but Kane Williamson is not batting well at all. The big question then is - should he continue as captain? Or should he move down the batting order? This is a huge lesson in what can happen when you make an overseas player a captain. Last year, they sacked David Warner as captain midway through the season and appointed Kane. He is struggling but the franchise don’t want to drop Kane and the skipper himself doesn’t want to bat down the order.”
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Notably, Hyderabad and the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) are the only two franchises with overseas captains in IPL 2022. RCB picked Faf du Plessis as their leader after Virat Kohli quit the post after the end of last season.
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“SRH will struggle if Tripathi doesn’t score” - Aakash Chopra
Focusing further on the batting department, Chopra opined that Hyderabad will not succeed in the upcoming games unless Rahul Tripathi gets back among the runs. He said:
“Rahul Tripathi hasn’t scored runs in the last couple of matches. SRH will struggle if Tripathi doesn’t score. Aiden Markram also needs to keep contributing. Nicholas Pooran played well briefly but he has also gone silent recently. Some of his knocks came in a losing cause but he was scoring runs.”
Chopra concluded that SRH’s batting seems to end with Pooran, which is a big issue. He stated:
“After Pooran, their batting ends. That is a huge problem. Shashank Singh played well in one game. Washington Sundar should get more opportunities, but he isn’t getting those. If you are going to send him at 7-8, then why have expectations from him?”
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Opener Abhishek Sharma is SRH’s leading run-getter in IPL 2022 with 374 runs from 12 games. Markram has 358 runs to his name, followed by Tripathi (317).