5 reasons why SRH have been the best team at the IPL auctions over the years

Sunrisers Hyderabad have been one of the most underrated teams in the IPL. Ever since they replaced Deccan Chargers in 2013, they’ve always punched above their weight.

In 2013, they reached the playoffs in their first-ever season. After underwhelming seasons in 2014 and 2015 where they finished 6th, SRH came storming back in the 9th edition (2016) to lift the title. In 2017, they reached the playoffs once again but lost to KKR in the Eliminator.

However, a lot of these performances have been due to the franchise’s performance at the auction. Hence, we look at 5 reasons why SRH have been one of the best teams at the auctions over the years.

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#5 Valuing domestic performances and unearthing a few uncapped players

The IPL is all about unearthing the future stars and a lot of teams invest in youth and unknown players. But very few franchises have been able to unearth domestic stars like Sunrisers Hyderabad have. In 2013, when they made their IPL debut they had taken over Deccan Charger’s team.

However, right from 2014, they’ve been investing in some unknown players and have valued domestic performances. Uttar Pradesh leggie Karn Sharma first shot into the spotlight playing for the SRH in 2013 and 2014 which helped him gain a spot in the Indian team (for a brief period where he played 4 international games).

Siddharth Kaul, who was a part of the 2008 Under-19 World Cup winning team, was bought by SRH in 2015 (after a couple of good domestic seasons) and the Punjab fast-bowler has just grown leaps and bounds. His record in 2017 justifies his improvement. In fact, he has been around the Indian national team for the last couple of months now.

Mohammed Siraj is another very good example. Before the 2017 IPL, not a lot of people knew who this young lad from Hyderabad was, but a stellar show in his maiden IPL season has helped him draw the attention of a lot of people.

Other youngsters such as Vijay Shankar, Barinder Sran and Deepak Hooda have got rewards for good domestic performances and have gone onto to do well for SRH.

#4 Maintaining a good bench strength

Each team plays at least 14 games in the IPL. The two-month-long tournament is bound to see a few injuries here and there. We’ve often seen players going down with injuries and that affects the team and the balance (For e.g. RCB in 2017). Thus, it is important to build a good bench strength.

SRH have done well over the past couple of years mainly due to their bench strength. They’ve always had backups for key players. For example, in 2017, even though, they had a full-strength bowling attack (comprising of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Mustafizur Rahman, and Rashid Khan among others), they stocked up their squad with a number of backup options (Mohammed Nabi, Chris Jordan, Pravin Tambe).

One of the main reasons is that bowlers are injury-prone and it is necessary to have enough backups.

#3 Targeting all-rounders

We often hear the experts talk about the ideal combination for a team and how critical is the balance of the team. And that balance is invariably provided by all-rounders.

SRH have invested heavily in all-rounders over the years. Darren Sammy, Ravi Bopara, Moises Henriques, Butting Cutting, Vijay Shankar, Deepak Hooda have all been central to SRH’s plans over the last few years. In fact, Ben Cutting and Moises Henriques have been regular in the XI in the last couple of years.

Even though SRH didn't have great batting depth, their allrounders more than covered it up for the absence of some power hitters. Thus, the SRH management has been very cautious in choosing their players at the auctions and have often bid aggressively for all-rounders.

#2 Experienced support staff play it smart at the auctions

Tom Moody (head coach), VVS Laxman (mentor) and Muttiah Muralitharan (bowling coach) are some big names in the history of the game. They’ve played magnificently well for their respective countries. But these three have been central to SRH’s planning.

At the auction, they’ve always played it smart. In 2014, when they were rebuilding, they went after David Warner and bought him for 5.5 crore which is an absolute bargain buy. And the way he led the side since 2015 has been brilliant.

In 2016, the Hyderabad franchise needed some experience in the middle order and they managed to get Yuvraj Singh for 7 crores. And then they obtained the services of Ashish Nehra in the same year.

In 2017, they went after Ben Stokes and set a target of 12 crores for the England all-rounder. However, since Stokes was in high demand his price shot up above SRH’s target and thus, they bailed out from the bid. Instead, they bought a utility all-rounder Mohammed Nabi.

Thus, SRH have been playing it very smart at the auctions.

#1 They try to build a strong bowling unit

One thing we’ve seen with SRH is that they’ve never had the best batting line-ups when compared to other teams. They have generally believed in building a strong bowling core. And it’s evident with the way they bid at the auction.

In 2014, they were willing to dish out money for attacking bowling options like Amit Mishra and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. They bought Trent Boult even though Dale Steyn was available in 2015. In the same year, Praveen Kumar was bought by the franchise.

In 2016, SRH bid aggressively for Ashish Nehra and finally acquired his services. SRH beefed up their pace attack with another couple of Indian seamers that year. They also bought the latest limited-overs sensation, Mustafizur Rahman. And in that year they proved that it is not necessary to have a team packed with batsmen. Bowlers win you games and they eventually did lead SRH to the title in the 9th edition of the IPL.

In 2017, they once again chose to stack their squad with a lot of bowlers as Mohammed Siraj, Chris Jordan, Ben Laughlin and Pravin Tambe were added to the SRH squad.

Hence, SRH have more often than not go into the IPL with the best bowling attack and most of the credit needs to be given to the management and the support staff who have done well at the auctions on every occasion.