IPL 2019 | CricViz Analysis: Sunrisers Hyderabad

Here is an analysis on the strengths and weaknesses of Sunrisers Hyderabad this year.

Strengths: 

Rashid Khan - With a projected bowling impact of +5.54 Rashid is easily the top ranked bowler in the tournament. His consistent brilliance makes batting against SRH immensely difficult. He will win matches single-handedly.

Bowling - SRH’s varied bowling attack is comfortably the best in the league. They combine a pace attack of similar quality to Mumbai’s - Bhuvneshwar (+2.40), Sandeep (+0.60) and Kaul (+0.29) - with a stronger spin attack - Rashid (+5.53), Shakib (+1.87) and Nabi (+0.87). Last season SRH defended four scores of 151 or fewer. Stanlake (-1.03 is a potential weakness as the overseas pace bowler. On his day he can be brilliant but at his worst he has proven very hittable and struggled in the BBL.

Death bowling - SRH are particularly brilliant in the death overs. Last season their death overs economy rate of 8.91 runs per over was comfortably the best in the league.

Weakness: 

Indian batting - Warner (projected batting impact +2.62) and Williamson (-0.11) are certain to start but with Dhawan traded to Delhi SRH are short on Indian batting. Yusuf (+0.74) is an experienced lower order option but Manish (-0.50) needs to justify his huge price tag after a poor season last year. Guptill (+0.11) and Bairstow (+0.31) provide back-up overseas options. Shankar (-0.18) contributes a negative impact with the bat in T20 but has shown potential in ODIs recently.

Lower order hitting - Yusuf (projected batting impact +0.74) is a powerful hitter down the order but Shakib (-1.53) often being preferred ahead of Nabi (+0.95) for the all rounder spot robs SRH of a huge amount of batting firepower. Nabi’s bowling (+0.68) is worse than Shakib’s (+1.87) but not by enough to justify his exclusion. Greater utilisation of Rashid’s batting could help SRH protect against this potential problem with Hooda (-1.06) and Saha (-1.47) also unlikely to contribute much in the phase.