Youth the way forward for SRH in IPL 2024, or so it seems

SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) find themselves sitting pretty in the fifth position of the IPL 2024 table at the time of writing with six points to their name. They have won three games out of the five they have played so far, two of which came at home.

On Tuesday, April 9, they picked up their first away win of the season when they beat the Punjab Kings (PBKS) by a mere two runs at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh Stadium in Mullanpur.

The climax of the game came down till the very last ball despite SRH trying to defend a massive 29 runs off the last over. However, they will be pleased with the way they got the two points on offer.

One of the biggest reasons behind SRH's continued dominance while batting was young Nitish Kumar Reddy's 37-ball 64 with the bat in hand. The fast-bowling all-rounder, asked to bat at number four by the Eagles, tore into the PBKS bowlers. He made the PBKS bowlers pay heavily for the mistakes that they made on the field.

Reddy smashed four boundaries and five maximums in his knock and will feel confident of his ability to play at this stage against the best in the business.

Despite SRH not willing to pick a single Hyderabad player in their squad, they gave Reddy, who plays for the neighboring Andhra, an opportunity, and this may just about make up for their lack of largesse to the former.

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A policy that is a norm rather than an exception

Jaydev Unadkat celebrating a wicket on Tuesday. [IPL]

It is a known fact that it is the young players in the SRH setup who have flourished for them and made them compete with their opponents on a level footing.

Be it Abhishek Sharma, Abdul Samad, or Reddy, youth seems to be the way forward for the Hyderabad-based franchise although the role that the senior players have cannot be discounted.

Jaydev Unadkat, for one, has become a vital cog in the wheel for SRH this season. The poor last over against PBKS notwithstanding, the left-arm pacer has extolled the virtues of variety and change of pace.

Skipper Pat Cummins, along with head coach Daniel Vettori, seems to have understood the secret formula that allows teams to succeed in the IPL and will now hope to recreate it.

Any team that has been even a tad successful in this league has invested heavily in youth, and Hyderabad, albeit a tad late to the party, seem to have bought into the idea.

Although the likes of Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, Travis Head, and Unadkat are indispensable to the side, so is the freshness that Sharma, Samad, Reddy, and a few others bring to the table.

Relying solely on youth in this extremely competitive tournament may not be feasible on all occasions for any franchise, let alone SRH. However, if they retain this policy and treat it as a norm rather than an exception, they may just be forgiven by their diehard supporters - those who fill Uppal to the brim day after day.