Sunrisers Hyderabad failed to live upto expectations and bowed out of contention for a spot in the playoffs phase of the IPL 2025. In every way it was a disappointing season. The team could not recreate the magic of last year when it finished runner up to Kolkata Knight Riders. Last year SRH crossed a total of 200 in six matches and looked unbeatable all the way upto the final. Now SRH has three more matches to be played, but they will be inconsequential as far as the tournament is concerned.
The reasons are many and varied.For one thing, there was the lack of a stable middle order in the batting line up. SRH’s batting was heavily reliant on aggressive top-order hitters like Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, and Heinrich Klaasen. This policy left the team vulnerable whenever early wickets fell, as there was no established anchor to stabilize the innings. Ishan Kishan, Aniketh Verma and Nitish Reddy did not do as well as expected. The above mentioned batters were not in the kind of form that the team needed so badly. While individual brilliance was occasionally witnessed such as Abhishek Sharma’s performances, the team as a whole struggled to maintain consistent performances. In matches against teams like Mumbai Indians and Gujarat Titans, SRH posted modest totals, which were not adequate to challenge their opponents.
Head coach Daniel Vettori felt that slow pitches were to blame for the failure of his batsmen. Considering that the SRH lineup was packed with hard hitting strokemakers, the slow and low bounce prevented them from putting their power into action, said Vettori.
Moreover, the team’s bench strength was poor with only few experienced players available to replace the players who were out of form. This lack of depth was a significant disadvantage, and the team could not afford to cope with bad form of the key players since reliable replacements were not of the same level.
SRH’s spin bowling department lacked variety and consistency. The team struggled on slower pitches, where quality spin bowling was the essential element needed to upset the opposition. It is clear that at least one top level spinner is needed in the side.
Moreover, the team’s approach to handling issues related to role assignments has lacked rationale.To top it all, the performances of the key fast bowlers such as Pat Cummins and Mohammed Shami were substandard. It was only in the last match that captain Cummins struck hard blows. Ironically the match was washed out when SRH may have won.
What steps could have prevented this collective bowling failure is something that the team management should have figured out long before reaching the closing stages of the tournament.
The causes of the failure of Mohammed Shami must be looked into very closely. Because it will have important ramifications for the Indian team as well. For this hard working fast bowler from UP, this season’s IPL has been a horror story. His rhythm, length and line went awry. Is it a temporary loss of form or a permanent fading of his talent? Former cricketer and now commentator Akash Chopra has always been one of Shami’s strongest supporters. But lately even Chopra has been raising questions about Shami’s ebbing talent. Chopra as well as former New Zealand fast bowler Danny Morrison stated that Shami may be slowing down in pace as well as motivation. The latter said that his ankle injury of last year and his age of 34 years is slowing down Shami.
In conclusion, SRH’s collective poor performance coupled with strategic imbalances, lack of depth, and inconsistent execution has pulled the team down. Now the goal of the team owners and management must be to learn lessons from this year’s lacklustre show and take care not to repeat the same failures in the next season.
This post was last modified on May 6, 2025 4:16 pm