Hyderabad: Boosted by new signings in Yuvraj Singh, Ashish Nehra and Mustafizur Rahman among others, Sunrisers Hyderabad are confident they can blaze the field in the ninth edition of the IPL beginning on Saturday. The Hyderabad side had missed a spot in the playoffs by two points to finish sixth in the eight-team table last year. “We’ve got a lot of talent and experience, some great minds too in two international captains — Eoin Morgan (England) and Kane Williamson (New Zealand). Looking at the team and the balance that we have, there’s gonna be no excuses this year,” captain David Warner said on Thursday.
Having said he felt at home in Hyderabad, Warner then parroted a line in local lingo. “Yeh saal ka poora season apanich jeettey! (We will win this season’s IPL),” he said in his Australian accent, triggering laughter and applause. Team Mentor VVS Laxman echoed the sentiments of his ‘street-smart captain’ and rated the strengths of the Sunrisers side high. “If we play to our potential, we will achieve our goal which is to win the IPL,” he said.
The Hyderabadi was enthusiastic about the domestic muscle. “We have strengthened our domestic talent in the bowling department this year which makes our team selection more flexible,” he said, making special mention of local lads T. Suman, Ashish Reddy besides Deepak Hooda, Aditya Tare, Naman Ojha, Vijay Shankar and Barinder Sran. Also, the cup of international talent overflows at SRH. “Both Yuvraj and Nehra are match-winners and it’s only a matter of getting the best out of them. Warner is a terrific batsman, who was the top scorer last year. I am also impressed with the way Kane Williamson captained New Zealand into the semifinals of the recent World Cup and Eoin Morgan, who transformed the English T20 as well as ODI teams. Dhawan is a senior who has led the side before. The team will benefit from the allround skills of Australian Ben Cutting and Moises Henriques while Bangladesh left-arm seamer Mustafizur Rahman’s off-cutters are hard to pick,” Laxman went on.
Coach Tom Moody downplayed fatigue as a factor given the short gap between the just-concluded World Cup and IPL. “At the end of the day, these are passionate cricketers and the IPL is the best T20 league in the world. So they would like to take the opportunity to showcase their skills,” he said. Bowling coach Muttiah Muralitharan pointed to the pitches, which have drawn quite a bit of flak of late. “The pitch plays an important role in a Twenty20 match. When you play too many games on it, the spinners have an advantage. But we guarantee sporting wickets here in Hyderabad where batsmen as well as bowlers will have a 50-50 chance to come good — we don’t want to take advantage of the wicket at home unlike some franchisees,” he said. That statement was loaded with tones of the Doosra the Sri Lankan spinner had bamboozled batsmen with in his playing days. Turn the heat on.
