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Sunrisers Hyderabad’s 2026 campaign was lively, nine wins from 14 and third place on the ladder, yet it still finished with another early-knockout trip home. Pace-bowling coach James Franklin sounded upbeat straight after the Eliminator. “Overall we’ve had a really good season,” he said. Others see loose threads.
Tom Moody, the man who coached the franchise to its only title in 2016, reckons the batting-heavy strategy is beginning to look lopsided. “It is a brand to admire but it comes at a cost,” Moody said on ESPNcricinfo TimeOut after Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Jofra Archer bashed them out of the play-offs. “They’re yet to lift the trophy with this brand. Yes, they’re giving themselves a window of opportunity. But the cost is also the fact that you need to invest to play that brand. And that investment is lost when it comes to the bowling side. So you’re pouring a lot of money into the way you play as a batting unit. You’re left short with the finances to be able to build a strong bowling unit to be able to support that.”
Numbers back him up. Travis Head was quiet by his standards – 410 runs at 170 – yet the top order still rattled along thanks to Heinrich Klaasen (624 runs, strike-rate 160), Ishan Kishan (602 at 182) and Abhishek Sharma (563 at 205). Nitish Kumar Reddy chipped in usefully too. In short, runs were never the issue.
Wickets, though, turned up in shorter supply. Eshan Malinga led with 20 at 9.33; Sakib Hussain followed with 15 at 9.45. Beyond that, it was hope and potential: Praful Hinge and Shivang Kumar have talent but remain works in progress. No frontline spinner dominated, and the quicks leaked at the death.
All this despite the headline purchase of Pat Cummins for INR 20.50 crore before the 2024 season – still the league’s record fee for an overseas player. With Gerald Coetzee and Dilshan Madushanka the other overseas seamers, the depth chart thins rapidly. Harshal Patel, twice a Purple Cap winner, played five matches, took no wickets and went at 10.82. Put bluntly, the balance sheet looks top-heavy.
“It’s [about] trying to find that balance and I think that’s what RCB have got. They’ve got that balance right,” Moody noted. “So, I’m not against the brand but you’ve got to try to balance it out when you’re talking about the salary cap and everything.”
Inside the camp Franklin naturally focuses on positives. “So, overall, not a lot’s gone wrong. I think, like every team, we’ll go away from the tournament, reflect. There’s obviously a lot of time now before the next IPL, you know, when you start to think about who you retain and then there’ll be another auction. So that’s a long way away,” he said.
Former SRH batter Ambati Rayudu echoed Moody’s view from the studio. “They can be brilliant like this. They’re very, very good on the eye. They’re very exciting. But still, to win an IPL, you need to be smart as well as be powerful. I think that can only improve if you get that kind of personnel and also get the balance and also”
His sentence trailed off but the gist was clear: batting fireworks alone rarely win an entire season. Even Royal Challengers Bengaluru, poster boys of hit-out-or-get-out cricket for years, added depth to their attack before their recent up-turn.
A glance at past champions underlines the point. Chennai Super Kings almost always allocate one overseas slot and a decent slice of the purse to a frontline spinner; Gujarat Titans built their 2024 triumph on a fast-bowling quartet that rotated with minimal drop-off. SRH once followed that template themselves, pairing Rashid Khan with a strong local seam bench.
So, is an overhaul on the cards? Not necessarily. Under the salary-cap system every trade-off matters. Retaining Klaasen, Kishan and Head will eat close to half the purse. Letting one high-profile batter go in favour of a proven spinner – perhaps an Adam Zampa-type – would free funds but risks dulling the powerplay. Tough calls lie ahead.
For now, supporters can take comfort in the fact that a side finishing third is hardly broken. The squad is young; most of the bowlers mentioned are in their early twenties. But Moody’s warning rings loud: unless wickets catch up with runs, SRH may keep bumping their heads on the same ceiling.
