Kane Williamson stated that he wasn’t surprised being released by the Sunrisers Hyderabad going into the Indian Premier League 2023 mini-auction after he had been the franchise’s most expensive player in the 2022 edition.
The Kiwi international was retained by SRH for INR 14 crore, which made him the most expensive player for the franchise, and was appointed as the captain following David Warner’s fallout with the side. The Sunrisers won just six of their 14 league matches in the previous season, despite having won five in a row during the initial stages, and eventually finished eighth oin the points table.
Willamson’s returns were highly underwhelming: he managed just 216 runs from 13 at a strike-rate of 93.50, the lowest among all batters to have faced a minimum of 100 balls in the season.
“That’s the way it goes, I had a really enjoyable time at SRH, I have a lot of fond memories,”
Williamson said, revealing that he had been in discussion with the team management regarding the same “a few days ago”.
“It wasn’t a surprise when it [retention list] was officially released.”
Williamson scored 2021 runs at 36.22 and strike rate of 126.03 for SRH, the only Premier League franchise he has played for till date, between 2015 and 2022.
He captained them in 46 of the 76 matches he played in, while leading them to a runners-up finish in 2018 in Warner’s absence. The New Zealand skipper had topped the run-scoring charts that year, with 735 runs at 52.50 and a strike rate of 142.44.
Williamson will now be in action during New Zealand’s white-ball home series against India, featuring three T20Is and as many ODIs between November 18 and 30.
