David Warner Inspiring Sunrisers Hyderabad with his Captaincy

By: Sandipan Bose

Sunrisers Hyderabad had a sedate start to this year’s IPL. They lost three matches in the beginning and literally had stiff challenges to comeback into winning way.

Leading by example, the Sunrisers captain David Warner was the first to strike form. He played superlative knocks to win a few of the matches almost single-handedly.

It was Warner’s confidence that rubbed off on his teammates. At the top of the order, Shikhar Dhawan, who was struggling to score consistently, gradually, started to look settled.

After getting an unconditional support from the team management, he started to get those run-a-ball knocks. Even New Zealand recruit Kane Williamson’s batting prowess too helped the Sunrisers immensely to build a reputation.

Moises Henriques, Deepak Hooda and Naman Ojha make a potent middle-order combination. They were still missing an experienced hand in the middle-order and this gap was duly filled by Yuvraj Singh’s return.

Even Sunrisers’ bowling also got a big boost with Ashish Nehra’s return to thick of things, after emerging as one of the most successful pacers in World T20.

Nehra is again back with a bang and continues to impress, with the likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar also adding to the variety to the bowling department.

The Sunrisers are actually turning out to be one of the best bowling units in the competition, with a format like the T20, the bowlers are bound to go for runs, but if you have a pacer like Mustafizur Rahman in your line-up, you need to worry much about as a captain.

Mustafizur has created so much impact with his swing, cutters and variations that no other bowler is discussed the way Mustafizur is talked about in the tournament.

Then, there is a domestic talent like Brander Sran, who is also doing his bit as a medium-pacer. Unlike other teams, the Sunrisers aren’t depending on slow bowlers to do the job.

They have as much as five fast bowlers and have only Yuvraj’s left-arm spin to fall back on. All this augurs well for a team, which is looking good to go all the way!