This season marked Aiden Markram’s debut as captain in the IPL. Prior to IPL 2023, the South African star had extensive leadership experience. He has captained South Africa in a few international matches and led the Sunrisers Eastern Cape to their first SA20 title earlier this year.
Sunrisers Hyderabad team owners named him as their skipper for the IPL 2023 season based on his captaincy history. In the previous two seasons SRH have finished in the bottom half of the points table. Aiden Markram was tasked with restoring the SRH team’s golden days.
Markram has not lived up to expectations in his first season as Sunrisers skipper. Markram has captained SRH in 11 matches, despite arriving late due to national duty. The team has four victories and seven losses.
The Sunrisers Hyderabad still have two games left in the IPL 2023 season, but they have already been eliminated from chance for the playoffs. It remains unclear if Aiden Markram would stay as SRH’s captain in IPL 2024.
Here is a list of the 3 major blunders he made as Hyderabad captain:
1) Aiden Markram made far too many changes to his team’s starting eleven.
Constant chopping and changing is harmful to any team since it prevents the squad from developing consistency. The Sunrisers Hyderabad are yet to find a regular starting lineup. Aiden Markram is part of the group that picks the starting XI, and he will be eager to continue with the same starting XI for the most of the matches next season.
Teams like the Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings, who presently sit atop the standings, rarely change their starting lineups. Meanwhile, SRH has tried 20 players in 12 games with little success.Markram should try to deploy fewer players next season.
2) Hyderabad is not developing pace-friendly pitches.
The home-and-away format was reinstated in the IPL 2023. Every team has the opportunity of playing half of their league stage matches at home. They are expected to finish in the top half of the rankings if they win 7 or atleast a significant portion of them.
The host team can request a certain pitch type. However, it appears that Aiden Markram and SRH did not offer the necessary inputs for the wicket preparation.
The Sunrisers have only won one of their six home games this season. Markram’s tactics in several of those games can be questioned. He could not even get the squad to adjust to the circumstances.
SRH’s greatest bowling strength is its speed. Given the skill of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Marco Jansen, T Natarajan, and Umran Malik, they can even afford to bowl 20 overs of pace in an innings. A speed-friendly pitch in Hyderabad could have greatly helped SRH.
3) Aiden Markram did not use resources at his disposal to perfection
SRH’s team management performed admirably in the auction and signed notable T20 players such as Adil Rashid, Akeal Hosein, Harry Brook, and Mayank Agarwal. Some fans even considered Hyderabad to fight for the IPL title in 2023.
However, Aiden Markram and the coaches were unable to use their resources. Brook and Agarwal are no longer in the starting lineup, and Rashid and Hosein have not been used ideally. Irfan Pathan even stated that Umran Malik is being mishandled by the team this season.
When the season is over, Markram should examine on how he lost out on opportunities to utilise the world-class players he had. The analysis might help him and SRH perform better in the IPL 2024.
