Sunrisers Hyderabad entertained cricket fans around the world with their entertaining brand of cricket in the 2024 season of the Indian Premier League, and after adding the likes of Ishan Kishan and Mohammed Shami to the set-up in the mega auction last year, the Orange Army will look to come up with even bigger performances in the 2025 edition of the Indian Premier League and go all the way to win the IPL title for the second time in nine years.
The 2016 IPL champions, despite the addition of Ishan, are unlikely to change the opening pair of Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma. The duo was in red-hot form last year, and SRH fans and team management will have expectations of similar performances from them this year as well. They were retained for Rs 14 crore each by the franchise ahead of the IPL 2025 mega auction, and the duo will be eager to live up to the billing.
Ishan opened for MI in the last three seasons of IPL, but with SRH, he is likely to bat at No. 3 and will have the support of Heinrich Klaasen and all-rounder Nitish Kumar Reddy in the middle order. Since Klaasen is SRH’s first-choice wicketkeeper-batter and Ishan is the only one who can’t contribute with the ball in the top five, there’s a high possibility that the left-handed batter will be mostly used as an impact player.
After parting ways with Abdul Samad and Shahbaz Ahmed, SRH signed former GT batter Abhinav Manohar in the mega auction, and the Karnataka-based cricketer will don the role of a finisher for SRH this year. Among others, SRH have an option to choose from Kamindu Mendis, Sachin Baby and Atharva Taide, who last played for PBKS in the IPL.
Captain Pat Cummins will lead the SRH pace attack and this time will have 2023 IPL purple cap holder Mohammed Shami and 2024 IPL purple cap holder Harshal Patel for support. The duo were signed as replacements for Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan in the mega auction.
SRH lacked the presence of a quality spinner in IPL 2024, and to fill that void, they signed Australia’s white-ball specialist Adam Zampa and out-of-favour Indian spinner Rahul Chahar. The team look very strong on paper in all three departments of the game, and if their players manage to perform according to their potential, then the IPL trophy could head to Hyderabad this year.
As for the impact player in the bowling, Sunrisers will have an option to choose from the likes of Jaydev Unadkat and Simarjeet Singh.
SRH’s probable playing XI for IPL 2025: Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen (WK), Nitish Kumar Reddy, Abhinav Manohar, Pat Cummins (C), Harshal Patel, Mohammed Shami, Adam Zampa, Rahul Chahar
Impact player: Jaydev Unadkat/Simarjeet Singh
