On Friday, April 21, MS Dhoni’s Chennai Super Kings (CSK) defeated the Sunrisers Hyderabad by seven wickets. After winning the toss, CSK opted to bowl first. SRH, batting first, lost seven wickets while putting up a paltry target of 135 runs in their given 20 overs. Abhishek Sharma scored 34 runs off 26 balls, making him the top scorer for the Sunrisers.
Thanks to Devon Conway’s brilliant knock of 77 runs off 57 balls, CSK reached the target in 18.4 overs. Sunriser’s bowled effectively, but the target wasn’t high enough to put pressure on CSK.
Hyderabad is now in 9th place on the points table and needs to pick it up quickly if they want to make it to the playoffs. Here, in the wake of their loss to CSK, let’s look into three areas of concern for Sunrisers Hyderabad:
1. Mayank Agarwal’s poor batting performance
Mayank Agarwal, whose SRH spent 8.25 crores on IPL Auction 2023, has struggled in this year’s competition. Only 115 runs have been scored through six innings by him, and his strike rate is barely above 100, worse than his lack of runs.
Agarwal began the season as a high-octave batsman but struggled to score runs. In previous game, he scored 48 runs off 41 balls, but his team fell short by 14 runs due to a lack of acceleration. This time, he was demoted, but it wasn’t beneficial either. SRH expects its veteran batsman to perform better this time around.
2. Poor batting performances
This season, Sunriser’s batters have been inconsistent most of the time. Harry Brook hasn’t done anything of notice other than his century against KKR. Rahul Tripathi and other top players like Abdul Samad and Mayank Agarwal have underperformed lately.
Therefore, there have been numerous occasions where the team failed to score an easily defendable total. Due to this, the bowlers have been unable to exert much pressure on the opponents. The entire batting order must improve its performance before it is too late.
3. Shortage of left-handed batsmen
Right-handed batters like Harry Brook, Mayank Agarwal, Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, and Heinrich Klaasen dominate the batting lineup.
Only Abhishek Sharma plays as a left-handed batsman. Therefore it’s easy for the opposing captain to use favorable match-ups to cause problems for the right-handed batters in the team.
So, considering his impressive track record at home, Vivrant Sharma deserves close attention from SRH. He could replace Mayank Agarwal, who needs a rest, for the team.