The Indian Premier League (IPL) is widely regarded as one of the toughest T20 tournaments in the world, with only a handful of teams able to win the coveted IPL title since its inception in 2008. Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) is one such team that won the prestigious championship in 2016, under the leadership of David Warner. SRH finished second in 2018 after two years of success in 2016 and made playoff appearances in 2013, 2017, 2019 and 2020. But they have failed to progress beyond the league stage in the past three years and are at the bottom of the table in 2021 and 2023.

SRH have looked like an inconsistent team since IPL 2021 and have changed captains 3 times in just a few years with Warner at the helm in 2021 and Kane Williamson ) takes the helm in 2022, with Aiden Markram taking the helm in 2023.

SRH’s head coach didn’t get a chance to settle in either. Trevor Bayliss takes the reins in 2021, Tom Moody in 2022, and Brian Lara in 2023.

The IPL 2024 champions will be led by another new captain in Australian Pat Cummins and they also have a few new faces on their coaching staff with Daniel Vettori as head coach and James Franklin James Franklin as fast bowling coach.

In November 2023, Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) traded Shahbaz Ahmed for Mayank Dagar in the trade window, and SRH got Shahbaz Ahmed.

Later, in a mini-auction, SRH snapped up Australia’s World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins for a whopping Rs 20.5 crore, breaking all bidding records and second only to Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) paying for Mitchell A record of Rs 2,475 crore. Stark.

Apart from Cummins, they also snatched up Travis Head (Rs 680 million) and Wanindu Hasaranga (Rs 150 million), both of whom will step up. their overseas teams.

As per the two-week schedule released by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), SRH will start their IPL 2024 season on March 23 against KKR at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata.

As SRH prepares for the new season under a new captain, let’s take a look at their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

strength

SRH is traditionally a bowling-oriented team that has defended low totals on several occasions in the past, and the arrival of Pat Cummins will only improve Hyderabad’s pace battery.

Last year, both Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mayank Markande took wickets, but they didn’t get much support from the rest of the bowling attack. In IPL 2023, Bhuvneshwar and Markande took 16 and 12 wickets with decent economies of 8.3 and 7.8 respectively.

Furthermore, the addition of Wanindu Hasaranga will provide impetus to SRH’s relatively inexperienced spin department. The Sri Lanka T20I captain will join forces with the likes of Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Jhathavedh Subramanyan and Markande.

Overall, Hyderabad has a quality overseas squad. Their new signings Cummins, Hyde and Hasaranga will join Heinrich Klassen, Glenn Phillips, Marco Janssen, Fazal Haq Faruqi and former captain Aiden Mark Lahm and others share the dressing room.

weakness

Unlike other IPL teams, SRH lacks famous Indian players who regularly play international cricket. They do have famous domestic players like Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, Umran Malik and Abdul Samad but they have not performed at their best in recent white-ball tournaments such as the 2023-24 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy 2023-24.

Last year, not a single SRH batsman from India scored more than 300 runs. Rahul Tripathi and Mayank Agarwal had a phenomenal campaign, scoring 273 and 270 points respectively.

Chance

Pat Cummins’ appointment as SRH captain has received mixed reactions but there is no doubting his captaincy pedigree at the international level.

Cummins has made outstanding contributions to the Australian national team as captain over the past two years. In 2023, at the age of 30, he won the ODI World Cup in India, the World Test Championship and defended the Ashes Cup in England.

Meanwhile, veteran India batsman Bhuvneshwar Kumar has been out of India’s T20I plans for the long term. He last played a T20I match for India in November 2022. However, he has had a good season domestically and will look to carry his momentum into IPL 2024 as he looks to secure a spot in the Indian team for the upcoming T20 World Cup in June.

threaten

SRH have won just 4 out of 14 games and are at the bottom of the IPL 2023 standings when they are captained by Markram, who leads SRH’s satellite team Sunrisers Eastern Cape in SA20 Won two consecutive championships in the competition (2023 and 2024).

However, Cummins will replace Markram as captain for the 2024 season, although it is worth noting that the Australian has never led a team in the IPL before. In fact, he has never led a team in top-tier T20 cricket before. His T20 figures as a bowler were not the best either, with the Australian pacer taking 145 wickets in 130 games with an economy rate of 7.99 in 20-over cricket.

Taking all factors into account, it is safe to say that whether Cummins can justify his price tag and perform well for SRH in the upcoming season will have a major impact on the fortunes of the team.

Another area where SRH may need to be wary of is the numerous injury-prone players in their squad. The likes of Washington Sundar, Travis Head, T Natarajan and Wanindu Hasaranga are known to have spent a lot of time on the treatment table over the past few years and if this continues, then SRH are already fighting an uphill battle.

Possible matches twelve:

Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Rahul Tripathi, Mayank Agarwal, Heinrich Klaasen (wk), Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Pat Cummins (c), Wanindu Hasaranga, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Abdul Samad (shock)