The Sunrisers Hyderabad team made many changes to their squad from the last edition, including a new captain. South Africa’s opening batter Aiden Markram was named the skipper of the SRH team for the new edition, and he will take over the reins from Kane Williamson, who was just released ahead of the IPL 2023 Mini auctions.
They were one of the busiest teams in the auctions, and expectedly so, as the SRH let go of some of their expensive overseas players, such as Nicholas Pooran and Romario Shepard. And in the auctions, the SRH made some high-profile purchases in the form of acquiring former Punjab Kings skipper Mayank Agarwal for a whopping 8.25 crores and going all-out for the England sensational batter Harry Brook who was brought for an earth-shattering 13.25 crores. These two are a great investment for the SRH, who would love to do better than the No.8 finish they had in 2022, at least with this sort of team.
With a great depth of bowling which they usually do, SRH now will want their batting unit to step, unlike the last season. This will ensure that SRH will maintain a balanced team throughout the campaign and present itself with a decent chance at the IPL glory.
Sunrisers will play their first match of the brand new Tata IPL 2023 in their home venue, Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium at Hyderabad. They will take on the 2022 edition’s runners-up, Rajasthan Royals, in an afternoon game on the 2nd of April.
Sunrisers Hyderabad Squad for IPL 2023: Abdul Samad, Umran Malik, Washington Sundar, Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, Kartik Tyagi, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Glenn Phillips, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal, Heinrich Klaasen, Adil Rashid, Mayank Markande, Vivrant Sharma, Samarth Vyas, Sanvir Singh, Upendra Singh Yadav, Mayank Dagar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Akeal Hosein, Anmolpreet Singh
Predicted Starting XI for SRH in IPL 2023
Openers: Aiden Markram, Mayank Agarwal
Aiden Markram is having a dream 2023 thus far. Recently he was named the skipper of South Africa’s T20I national team after finding a great deal of success as the captain of Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the SA 20 League tournament. He led them to a title win in its inaugural edition. Markram was prolific in the recent West Indies Test series at home and has been consistent in the shortest format of the game for the Proteas where he averages 39 over the last 2 years with a strike rate of around 149. He played 14 games for SRH in the last edition and accumulated 381 runs at an average of 47.63 and a strike rate close to 140.
His opening partner is likely to be Mayank Agarwal who didn’t have the best of seasons in 2022 with the Punjab Kings where he scored just 196 runs at a paltry average of 16.33 and only 1 half-century in the 12 outings. He was subsequently released by the franchise but the SRH can take heart from the fact that Mayank had an outstanding 2020 and 2021 where he scored 400+ in each of the seasons at an average of 40 and a strike rate of close to 150. SRH will hope for these 2 top-order classy batters to come good in 2023.
Middle-Order: Rahul Tripathi, Harry Brook, Heinrich Klaasen
Rahul Tripathi had in some ways his breakthrough IPL season in 2022 for the SRH where he amassed 413 runs at an average of 37.55 with a mind-blowing strike rate of 158.24 in the 14 games he played. He was by far their best batsman of last season and this earned him a call-up to the Indian T20I side. SRH will hope Tripathi once again has a brilliant season at his favoured No.3 slot.
Next up is the new sensation on the block, Harry Brook from England. SRH shelled out 13.25 crores to get the services of the young middle-order batsman in the IPL and the reason being his exploits in international cricket. Brook in his brief career scored a jaw-dropping 809 runs in just 10 Test innings and what is more impressive is his strike rate which reads a mind-boggling 98.78. He also has a decent start to his T20I career for England.
Heinrich Klaasen was snapped by the SRH for a huge sum of 5.25 crores and from then on, the Proteas batter has been in amazing form. He just smashed South Africa’s 4th fastest ODI hundred a batter and has proved to be a match-winner when he is full flow. These 3 batters are expected to take control of the middle overs for the SRH.
All-rounders: Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, Abdul Samad
Washington Sundar has shown that his power-hitting game has improved in recent years and should be the ideal batsman to come at the No.6 slot. He has played multiple useful knocks in his short yet injury-hit international career and one of his main strengths is the fact that he bowls his off-spinners at the powerplays with great success.
Marco Jansen is another player who can hit a ball a mile and can take wickets at crucial junctures making him one of the valuable assets for the SRH team this year. He has improved overall as a player in all formats and the team in orange should benefit from him being on their side. Abdul Samad has been around with the Sunrisers team for the last 3 years but is yet to prove himself at this stage. We can expect him to be a part of the playing XI when they their first game this season.
Bowlers: T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik
SRH’s strong point over the years has been their bowling, especially the Indian fast bowling options, which they have plenty of this season as well. Bhuvneshwar Kumar, India’s veteran pacer has been absent from the national team for a while now and this fact should motivate him to do well this IPL and make a comeback. He has taken 154 wickets in the IPL, of which 12 came in the last season.
Here are the five best spells of Bhuvi in his IPL career.
T Natarajan too has missed a lot of cricket due to injury but his IPL numbers are more than decent. The left-arm pacer has taken 38 wickets from 35 games and would love to have a great season here. Umran Malik, the express pace bowler had an incredible 2022 season where he snapped up 22 wickets in 14 games to be SRH’s leading wicket-taker and was called up to the national ODI and T20I teams. The trio has the potential to make inroads into any batting line-up on their day.
You can find here the other franchise’s probable starting XI for IPL 2023 here.
Hyderabad Probable Playing XI: Aiden Markram, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Harry Brook, Heinrich Klaasen, Washington Sundar, Marco Jansen, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umran Malik, Mayank Markande
