Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) is probably the only team among the IPL franchisees which is equally good in all departments: batting, bowling and fielding.  Let’s dwell briefly into the journey of the past champions in IPL thus far.

SRH was formed only in 2013 after Deccan Chargers team was wound up.  In its 7-year sojourn in IPL from 2013-2019, SRH had qualified for five times for the play-off stage, including making the finals on two occasions.  SRH beat RCB to clinch the trophy in the 2016 finals while it lost to CSK in 2018 to finish up as runner-up.

SRH beards RCB in its own den

In the keenly contested 2016 finals, SRH managed to pull off a comfortable win over RCB in the latter’s backyard i.e. Bangalore.  That SRH triumphed against a team comprising the likes of Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers was considered a huge achievement indeed.  What impressed the fans was the variety in SRH’s bowling.  SRH’s spinners took just 9 wickets in the whole tournament in 2016 as it was served hard by its medium pacers and fast bowlers.  It’s a record as till now no winning team’s spinners had taken so few wickets in an entire IPL tournament.

One more record…

In 2019, SRH managed to win just 6 out of the 14 league matches but still qualified for the play-off stage, thus creating a new record as a team with least number of wins in the league-stage to proceed to the play-offs.

Home tigers…

After CSK, SRH holds the record for registering more victories on home turf Hyderabad; SRH’s 68.18% record is second only to CSK (71.43%).  Moreover, SRH also has a well-set combo of openers who have scored 100 or more runs in partnerships on more than 10 occasions, which is another unique record with SRH.  Dashing Aussie David Warner, SRH’s opener, is its leading with 3271 runs; Warner also won the prestigious ‘orange cap’ for scoring most runs during the 2015, 2017 and 2019 editions.  In fact, SRH’s batters have won this cap four times during the past five years.

Its bowling is led by Team India’s ever-dependable seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar who won the ‘purple cap’ for taking most wickets during the 2016 and 2017.

Tough competitors

For some strange reasons, SRH has always been considered as a team with the least chances of winning the trophy as compared to other teams.  However, SRH’s dedicated players have time and again proved others wrong; may be, they may do so at this year’s UAE event as well!

SRH Matches