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SRH have an arduous task ahead of them in the UAE leg of the Indian Premier League 2021, starting September 19. The Sunrisers are easily the most precariously placed franchise heading into the second half of the season.
The 2016 champions have played anything but like a former champion side in this year’s edition of the IPL. During the Indian leg of the competition, SRH won just one of their seven matches, losing the rest six.
In a campaign offering a grim reminder of the perennial problems in both the batting and the bowling departments, the side have looked in a dire state. A major controversy around captaincy has only piled on their issues.
Earlier this year, the SRH think-tank announced a mid-season captaincy change where Australian opening batsman and the team’s regular skipper, David Warner, relinquished his post for New Zealand’s Kane Williamson, who had led the side successfully back in 2018 when Warner was facing a ball-tampering ban.
This was followed by Warner’s sacking from the playing XI on the grounds of poor form. Warner had struggled to get going in the first six matches with the bat and had a strike-rate of only 110.28 for his 193 runs.
But still, it was expected that, having shed some of Warner’s workload, SRH management would give him time to get back to his best as a player. However, in a dramatic turn of events, he was removed as captain and dropped from the team on grounds of poor form.
Key players
Unlike Warner, his opening partner Jonny Bairstow was in a rich vein of form and rhythm at the crease during the Indian leg and made 248 runs at an average of 41.33 and strike-rate of 141.71.
Unfortunately for SRH, to further accentuate their troubles, Bairstow only recently opted out of the UAE leg of IPL 2021, presumably due to potential bubble fatigue in what is a long winter ahead for him with the England side.
In Bairstow’s absence, SRH have brought West Indies batter, Sherfane Rutherford, into their squad. Rutherford has played 72 T20 games in his career so far with 1,163 runs at a strike-rate of 135.86. But while Rutherford is a promising young talent, it is clear that in the absence of Bairstow and with Warner struggling for form, the bulk of the load will have to be taken by skipper Williamson and an experienced player like Manish Pandey on the batting front.
In the bowling department, Rashid Khan has been the stand-out bowler for SRH. The Afghanistan wrist spinner has played to his great reputation this IPL as well and is heading to the UAE leg with 10 wickets from 7 matches and an economy rate of just 6.14.
Prediction
But while Rashid is a four-over bank for SRH, no other bowler could claim to be carrying such a status in the side. Not even experienced paceman Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who performed poorly earlier this year, conceded 9.10 runs per over in his five outings with just three wickets.
As far as predictions are concerned, given their alarming problems with regards to the team balance, inconsistent batting and lack of dependable pacers, there seems no immediate end in sight to SRH’s struggles. Having already conceded so much ground in India, it’ll require a miracle for them to get close to the playoffs.
They’ll resume their campaign on September 22 in Dubai against the Delhi Capitals (DC). Williamson & company will play three matches in Dubai, two in Sharjah and two in Abu Dhabi.
