Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) are a franchise cricket team based in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, which plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL). They were one of the eight teams that competed in the 2018 Indian Premier League, making their sixth appearance in all IPL tournaments. The team was captained by Kane Williamson and coached by Tom Moody with Simon Helmot as assistant coach, Muttiah Muralitharan as bowling coach and V. V. S. Laxman as mentor.
They began their season by winning their opening fixture on 9 April, and went on to become the first team to qualify for the play-offs on 10 May. They beat the Kolkata Knight Riders in Qualifier 2 to reach the Final where they lost to the Chennai Super Kings by eight wickets to finish the season as runners-up. Williamson won the Orange Cap for scoring 735 runs in the IPL season.
Background The Chennai Super Kings and the Rajasthan Royals were re-included in the 2018 season after serving two years of suspension from the competition due to the involvement of their owners in the 2013 IPL betting scandal. The IPL Governing Council also announced that a maximum of five players can be retained by each IPL team of which no more than three can be selected through retention in the lead up to the auction, and a maximum of three through right-to-match (RTM) cards during the auction. The other restrictions on player retention were: a maximum of three capped Indian players can be retained, and only two overseas and two uncapped Indian players can be retained - kept to avoid repetition. The salary cap for each team for the 2018 season had been increased from to . A franchise was allowed to spend a total of only on retention ahead of the 2018 IPL auction, leaving it at least to spend at the auction.
Player acquisition
Retention The Sunrisers Hyderabad announced their retention list on 4 January 2018 retaining David Warner and Bhuvneshwar Kumar. They went into the 2018 IPL auction with the remaining salary cap of and three right-to-match cards.
Player auction The Sunrisers Hyderabad started the auction by using their first RTM card for Shikhar Dhawan. They acquired Shakib Al Hasan and welcomed back Kane Williamson from marquee list in auction. They bid heavily on Manish Pandey and got him for which made him the joint-most expensive buy of the day for an Indian player. They later added Carlos Brathwaite and Yusuf Pathan from the capped all-rounders list and also got Wriddhiman Saha as their first-choice wicket-keeper. They used their remaining two RTM cards to retain Rashid Khan and Deepak Hooda. They later added Ricky Bhui to their batting line-up. They participated actively during the auction of uncapped fast-bowlers retaining Siddarth Kaul and also getting the services of Thangarasu Natarajan, Basil Thampi and Khaleel Ahmed. This ended the first day of auction for the Sunrisers with the addition of 14 players to their squad spending .
On the second day, the Sunrisers got Mohammad Nabi back into their squad and later added Sandeep Sharma, possibly to form an opening bowling partnership with Bhuvneshwar Kumar. They also added Sachin Baby, Billy Stanlake and Shreevats Goswami, before retaining Chris Jordan and Tanmay Agarwal to add depth to their squad in the accelerated process in the auction. The franchise bought Bipul Sharma and the local boy, Mehdi Hasan, in the second round of the auction to fill their maximum quota of 25 players. This ended the second day of auction for the Sunrisers Hyderabad with the addition of 9 players for .
Retained players David Warner and Bhuvneshwar Kumar
Released players Tanmay Agarwal, Kane Williamson, Shikhar Dhawan, Ricky Bhui, Moises Henriques, Mohammad Nabi, Yuvraj Singh, Deepak Hooda, Bipul Sharma, Ben Cutting, Vijay Shankar, Naman Ojha, Eklavya Dwivedi, Siddarth Kaul, Mohammed Siraj, Rashid Khan, Chris Jordan, Barinder Sran, Ashish Nehra, Mustafizur Rahman, Abhimanyu Mithun, Ben Laughlin, Pravin Tambe
Added players Shikhar Dhawan, Shakib Al Hasan, Kane Williamson, Manish Pandey, Carlos Brathwaite, Yusuf Pathan, Wriddhiman Saha, Rashid Khan, Ricky Bhui, Deepak Hooda, Siddarth Kaul, Thangarasu Natarajan, Basil Thampi, Khaleel Ahmed, Mohammad Nabi, Sandeep Sharma, Sachin Baby, Chris Jordan, Billy Stanlake, Tanmay Agarwal, Shreevats Goswami, Bipul Sharma, Mehdi Hasan
Replacement players Alex Hales
Squad Players with international caps are listed in bold. Signed Year denotes year from which player is continuously associated with Sunrisers Hyderabad
No.NameNationalityBirth dateBatting styleBowling styleYear signedSalaryNotes Batsmen 2 Alex Hales Right-handed Right-arm medium 2018 Overseas. Replacement to Warner.10 Manish Pandey Right-handed Right-arm off break 2018 11 Tanmay Agarwal Left-handed Right-arm leg break 2017 18 Sachin Baby Left-handed Right-arm off break 2018 22 Kane Williamson Right-handed Right-arm off break 2015 Captain, Overseas.25 Shikhar Dhawan Left-handed Right-arm off break 2013 27 Ricky Bhui Right-handed Right-arm leg break 2014 31 David Warner Left-handed Right-arm leg break 2014 Overseas. Banned from IPL 2018. All-rounders4 Mehdi Hasan Left-handed Slow left-arm orthodox 2018 5 Deepak Hooda Right-handed Right-arm off break 2016 7 Mohammad Nabi Right-handed Right-arm off break 2017 Overseas.17 Yusuf Pathan Right-handed Right-arm off break 2018 26 Carlos Brathwaite Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 2018 Overseas.28 Bipul Sharma Left-handed Slow left-arm orthodox 2015 75 Shakib Al Hasan Left-handed Left-arm orthodox spin 2018 Overseas. Wicket-keepers3 Shreevats Goswami Left-handed 2018 6 Wriddhiman Saha Right-handed 2018 Bowlers9 Siddarth Kaul Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 2016 13 Khaleel Ahmed Right-handed Left-arm medium-fast 2018 15 Bhuvneshwar Kumar Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 2014 Vice-captain.19 Rashid Khan Right-handed Right-arm leg break 2017 Overseas.30 Basil Thampi Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 2018 34 Chris Jordan Right-handed Right-arm fast-medium 2017 Overseas.37 Billy Stanlake Left-handed Right-arm medium-fast 2018 Overseas. Ruled out due to fractured finger.44 Thangarasu Natarajan Left-handed Left-arm medium-fast 2018 66 Sandeep Sharma Right-handed Right-arm medium-fast 2018
Administration and support staff
Position Name Owner Kalanithi Maran (Sun Network) CEO K Shanmugham Head coach Tom Moody Assistant coach Simon Helmot Bowling coach Muttiah Muralitharan Mentor V. V. S. Laxman Physio Theo Kapakoulakis Physical trainer Jade Roberts Source:
Kit manufacturers and sponsors
Kit ManufacturersShirt Sponsor (Chest) Shirt Sponsor (Back) Chest BrandingTYKA SportsRed FM 93.5 Manforce Rupa Source :
Indian Premier League
A total of eight teams competed in the Indian Premier League in the 2018 season. The teams played each other twice in a home-and-away round-robin format in the league phase. Two points were awarded for each win, one point per no-result, and none for defeats. The playoff stage was played according to the page playoff system and provided top two teams in the league stage with two ways of qualifying for the Final. The top two teams first faced each other in Qualifier 1, the winner of which qualified for the Final. The third and fourth placed teams in league stage faced each other in Eliminator. The loser of Qualifier 1 played against the winner of the Eliminator in Qualifier 2, the winner of which also qualified for the Final. The winner of Final was crowned as the IPL champions.
Offseason The fixtures for this season were released on 14 February with the Sunrisers Hyderabad playing their first match against the Rajasthan Royals on 9 April at their home ground in Hyderabad. On 28 March, David Warner resigned as the captain of the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the aftermath of a ball-tampering scandal in South Africa. The Board of Control for Cricket in India later announced on the same day that Warner along with his Australian team-mate, Steve Smith, would not be allowed to play in 2018 IPL after Cricket Australia imposed one-year ban imposed on them. The following day, the Sunrisers Hyderabad announced Kane Williamson would serve as captain and Bhuvneshwar Kumar would be vice-captain for the season. Later, they announced Alex Hales as Warner's replacement for the season. The batsman was bought for his base price of from the Registered and Available Player Pool (RAPP) list.
On the squad available for this season, coach Tom Moody said,
Season summary April On 9 April, the Sunrisers started their season campaign with a nine-wicket win over the Rajasthan Royals. Williamson, the Sunrisers' new captain, elected to field first after winning toss and the bowlers justified his call with Billy Stanlake making the batsmen struggle with his awkward bounce while spin twins Rashid Khan and Shakib Al Hasan further applied brakes in middle overs. Siddharth Kaul also impressed with two scalps while ensuring that he did not leak any runs in the death overs to restrict the Royals to 125/9 in 20 overs. Wriddhiman Saha opened with Shikhar Dhawan to start the chase for the Sunrisers but fell while attempting to loft over midfield. Dhawan, who got a reprieve after Ajinkya Rahane dropped his catch at first slip on zero, slammed a 33-ball half-century to complete the Sunrisers' chase with Williamson providing a stable stand, playing his natural game and "relying on pure timing and hand-eye coordination".
On 12 April, the Sunrisers eked out a hard-fought win over the Mumbai Indians in a last-ball thriller. Earlier, Williamson won the toss and elected to field. Sandeep Sharma was handed his debut for the Sunrisers, replacing the injured Bhuvneshwar, and started troubling the Mumbai Indians batsmen right from the start, but it was Stanlake who succeeded in dismissing Rohit Sharma. Later, Kaul dismissed Ishan Kishan and Evin Lewis inside power-play. The Mumbai Indians were slowly choked in the middle overs by Rashid, who bowled 18 dot balls and took wicket of Ben Cutting. The Mumbai Indians' batsmen also played some reckless shots losing wickets which finally saw them finishing the innings with 147/8. With a low total to chase, Dhawan played aggressively and laid the platform for the chase stitching a 62-run partnership with Saha in just 6.5 overs. But the introduction of Mayank Markande saw the Sunrisers slip from 73/1 to 107/5. Yusuf Pathan and Deepak Hooda brought the Sunrisers to within 12 runs of victory before Jasprit Bumrah and Mustafizur Rahman delivered two vital strikes each. Off the final ball, Stanlake hoicked the slower delivery to the midwicket fence to script a one-wicket win.
The Sunrisers completed a hat-trick of wins in the season with a five-wicket win over the Kolkata Knight Riders on 14 April. Williamson once again won the toss and elected to field. Chris Lynn built a 39-run partnership with Nitish Rana after Bhuvneshwar removed Robin Uthappa early on. But the Sunrisers pulled the match back with Stanlake cramping Rana. Sunil Narine struggled at No.4 while an excellent catch by Manish Pandey sent Andre Russell back. Bhuvneshwar removed Dinesh Karthik in 19th over with the Sunrisers restricting the Knight Riders to 138/8. Saha provided a brisk start to the Sunrisers but the innings suffered a small collapse in the middle when spin was introduced. They recovered through a 59-run partnership between Williamson and Shakib with the former completing his half-century. In the end, Pathan finished the chase with two boundaries and a six to register the Sunrisers' first win ever at the Eden Gardens.