The Sunrisers Hyderabad team since its inception in 2013 has always been the one to beat. The captaincy of David Warner combined with the backroom brilliance of Tom Moody and VVS Laxman has helped the Deccan region team to come out on the top in the last two years specifically. This year, the team will be out again with a realistic chance of claiming the highest glory- the IPL trophy.

Sunrisers – IPL History

Best Performance:

The Orange Army reached its zenith in the 2016 IPL Season where they ended third in the league stage and then went on to win the three Playoff matches in a row to take the IPL Trophy home.

Worst Performance:

Hyderabad’s worst performance occurred in the 2014 season where they lost more matches than they had won. They ended sixth out of the eight playing teams, embarrassingly they lost three of their four home matches.

IPL 2017 Performance:

Making the most of the known conditions, SRH team converted its home venue into a fortress and won six out of its seven matches played in Hyderabad. With two away wins, they ended third in the league stage. KKR then knocked them out in the Eliminator with rain playing spoilsport.

Strength:

Before going into the IPL Auction 2018, SRH retained the Orange Cap and Purple Cup winners of the 2017 IPL season in David Warner (641 runs) and Bhuvneshwar Kumar (26 wickets). They were astute at the Auction as they managed to retain the core of their successful team and added few new players to erase the weaknesses of the previous squad.

Using the Right to Match card, SRH retained the services of Shikhar Dhawan, Rashid Khan, and Deepak Hooda. Rashid Khan is currently the number one bowler in ICC T20I Rankings. In addition, they bought back Kane Williamson, Chris Jordan and Mohammad Nabi to keep the core unit strong.

Hyderabad in new sign-ins this year bought the world-class Bangladeshi all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan, the Indian powerhouse Manish Pandey, the dynamic all-rounder Carlos Braithwaite and many other quality players.

In David Warner and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, SRH has a two-times Orange cap and a two-times Purple cap winner, a luxury no other IPL team enjoys.

SRH on paper looks like a very balanced squad. They have aggression at the top balanced by the calm and class in the middle order. They have strong finishers who can come and bowl when needed. They have a world-class spinner and a potent pace battery that possesses genuine bowling speed and skill.

Weakness:

SRH will be poorer with the loss of Ashish Nehra and Mustafizur Rehman, two excellent bowlers to start and finish the game. They still have Chris Jordan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar but the void of Nehra-Mustafizur shall affect them.

Although SRH possesses brilliant spin options in Shakib Al Hasan and Mohammad Nabi, the four- foreign players restriction may leave Rashid Khan alone in the spin department. This can be a concern for SRH while playing on heavy-spinning tracks.

Prediction for IPL 11

SRH on a whole looks like a brilliant squad that has combined some of the most accomplished T20 players going around. They do not really possess a glaring weakness and are captained by the dynamic David Warner who is the second most successful captain in the last three years of IPL. They will be disappointed to not be one of the two top teams by the end of league matches.

Expected End Position: First or Second.

Full Squad:

David Warner (C), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Manish Pandey, Rashid Khan, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha, Siddarth Kaul, Deepak Hooda, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Sandeep Sharma, Kane Williamson, Carlos Brathwaite, Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Shreevats Goswami, Mohammad Nabi, Chris Jordan, Basil Thampi, T Natarajan, Sachin Baby, Bipul Sharma, Syed Mehdi Hasan, Ricky Bhui, Tanmay Agarwal