“Who’s gonna be the leader?” – Wasim Jaffer on Sunrisers Hyderabad after IPL 2023 auction

Wasim Jaffer believes that SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) lack a proper captaincy option for IPL 2023 following Saturday's mini-auction. The former India cricketer reckons that Mayank Agarwal will not be the team's skipper. He added that overseas batter Aiden Markram would also not be a proper leadership choice.

Speaking on ESPNCricinfo, Jaffer said:

“Who’s gonna be the leader? Definitely, not Mayank Agarwal for me. Aiden Markram again, for me, there’s a question mark, how he understands the local players, the uncapped players. So if you see if they lose a few games, captain changing mid-way and there’s no automatic leader, which can be going throughout the season.”

It’s worth mentioning that former Punjab Kings (PBKS) captain Mayank was bought for Rs 8.25 crore at the IPL 2023 auction. SRH released captain Kane Williamson after they finished eighth in IPL 2022 with six wins in 14 games.

The New Zealand legend was sold to Gujarat Titans (GT) for a base price of Rs 2 crore.

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“One for the future” – Tom Moody as Sunrisers Hyderabad buys Harry Brook for Rs 13.25 crore

Former SRH head coach Tom Moody, meanwhile, has praised SunRisers Hyderabad for buying Harry Brook. He believes the England batter will surely deliver for the franchise in the upcoming IPL editions.

Speaking on the same show as Jaffer, Moody said:

“They’ve really pushed for Harry Brook. He’s clearly a very exciting player and one for the future, if not now.”

For the uninitiated, Brook emerged as the top run-getter for England in the recently concluded Test series against Pakistan. He amassed 468 runs in three Tests at an average of 93.6, including three centuries. In T20Is, Brook has scored 372 runs in 17 innings at a strike rate of 137.78 this year.

Moody went on to state that the SunRisers Hyderabad lack a high-quality all-rounder in their ranks.

“What was a big gap in their squad and that was the need for a high-quality overseas all-rounder.”

For the uninitiated, SRH bought three overseas and 10 Indian players in the auction. Their activity at the auction was as follows:

Harry Brook (Rs 13.25 crore), Mayank Agarwal (Rs 8.25 crore), Heinrich Klassen (Rs 5.25 crore), Vivrant Sharma (Rs 2.6 crore), Adil Rashid (Rs 2 crore), Mayank Dagar (Rs 1.8 crore), Akeal Hosein (Rs 1 crore), Mayank Markande (Rs 50 lakh), Upendra Singh Yadav (Rs 25 lakh), Sanvir Singh, Anmolpreet Singh, Samarth Vyas, Nitish Kumar Reddy (Rs 20 lakh each).

SunRisers Hyderabad retentions: Abdul Samad, Aiden Markram, Rahul Tripathi, Glenn Phillips, Abhishek Sharma, Marco Jansen, Washington Sundar, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Kartik Tyagi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan, Umran Malik.