The 2016 champions Sunrisers Hyderabad released last season’s skipper Kane Williamson ahead of the IPL 2023 auction. They opted not to reacquire him at the auction and recently named Aiden Markram as their new skipper for the upcoming edition of the league. Ahead of the official announcement, there were three major candidates for the captaincy post – Aiden Markram, Mayank Agarwal and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.
Aakash Chopra concurred with the SRH’s decision not to give the captaincy to Mayank Agarwal reasoning: “Mayank was the other option. What a player he is, I love him to bits, but considering the season he had as a batter and captain (for Punjab Kings) last year, you say you shouldn’t trouble him too much and want him to just bat explosively at the start.”
However, Aakash Chopra feels Bhuvneshwar Kumar might have been a better option as skipper for Sunrisers Hyderabad, stating: “Aiden Markram has become the SunRisers Hyderabad captain. They had two other options in the form of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mayank Agarwal. My personal vote was for Bhuvneshwar Kumar because he has been with this franchise for many years.”
He pointed out that Sunrisers Hyderabad was led by the veteran swing bowler whenever Williamson was unavailable, observing: “He is not playing cricket anywhere else, neither ODIs nor T20Is for India, so he will be available for the entire IPL season. Last year also, when Kane (Williamson) left in between, you made him the captain. He has been there for a very long time, my vote was in his favor.” Among all the options available for Sunrisers Hyderabad, Chopra believes Bhuvneshwar would have been the best but he believes SRH might not be thinking of playing him in all the matches and that might be the reason for not selecting him as the skipper.
