Sunrisers Hyderabad were out of luck on Wednesday in Vizag when they went down to Delhi Capitals in the Eliminator of IPL 2019 playoffs.
Put into bat, Hyderabad only managed 162/6 in their 20 overs. Delhi Capitals reached the target in the final over of the match but not before they made a mess of the chase.
Sunrisers’ miseries began with departure of Jonny Bairstow and David Warner and all their slip-ups were somehow related to the duo’s absence.
Sunrisers Hyderabad, the champions of the 2016 edition struggled during the last phase of the league stage but were lucky to make it to the top-four. They were tied on 12 points with Kolkata Knight Riders and Kings XI Punjab but qualified on the virtue of superior net run rate.
In fact, Hyderabad were the first team in IPL history to enter the playoffs with 12 points.
With Wednesday’s loss, Sunrisers ended their IPL 2019 campaign, while Delhi progressed into the second qualifier.
Coming into the playoffs, the Sunrisers were surely the weakest among the four teams and here’s a look at the factors that made them one.
Over-Dependence on Warner-Bairstow Duo
Till the pair were playing in IPL 2019, batting was the last concern for the Sunrisers think-tank. And why not. By the time Warner and Bairstow were on their way back, the duo had scored around 50 per cent of the runs amassed by the side in the competition.
Opening the innings for Sunrisers, Warner and Bairstow scored 1,145 runs with Warner scoring 692 of them in 12 innings while Bairstow smashing the remaining 445 runs from 10 games.
Such was their dominance, that either most of the batting line-up didn’t get a chance to bat or their batting failure hardly made a difference. It was only after their departure that the Sunrisers realised the mess they were in as far as their batting was concerned.
Nobody to Replace Warner & Bairstow at the Top
Failure to fill in during Warner and Bairstow’s absence contributed to Sunrisers downfall.
After their big-hitting foreign openers, Hyderabad were forced to open with Martin Guptill and Wriddhiman Saha. And the duo couldn’t emulate the heroics with the bat that saw Warner and Bairstow rip apart the opposition bowlers.
Not only did the new openers lack the fire power of their predecessors, they hardly had consistency in shot making.
Guptill and Saha couldn’t rise to the challenge and found it difficult to get going from the word go for the Sunrisers. While Guptill could manage only 81 runs in the three matches that he played, Saha hit a dismal 53 runs in his three innings that he opened in.
Struggling Middle-Order
Sunrisers middle-order in IPL 2019 was never the best. Till their star openers were in India, Sunrisers didn’t find it necessary to pull up the middle-order.
But post Warner-Bairstow era, the middle-order’s inefficiency came to the fore and started hurting the teams’ chances.
Vijay Shankar managed a high score of only 40 in his 14 innings and he used to bat at number three. A change in batting position hardly mattered as Shankar finished IPL 2019 with 244 runs from 14 innings.
Manish Pandey only started scoring after he replaced Shankar at number three. Before that he had scored 54 runs in five innings.
Kane Williamson (156 runs in 9 innings), Mohammad Nabi (115 runs in 7 innings) and Yusuf Pathan (40 runs in 8 innings) did nothing to help Sunrisers’ cause.
Losing Form in the Final Stage
After a decent start to their campaign, Sunrisers Hyderabad lost their way in the end. The dip in form coincided with the departure of their foreign recruits.
After 10 games, Hyderabad were nicely placed with five wins. They needed to win their last three matches to automatically book a spot in the play-offs but unfortunately, they could only win one.
By the time the league stage were nearing its end, a win in their last league match would have guaranteed a spot in the top four but Sunrisers lost to bottom-placed Royal Challengers Bangalore. They were on the verge of being ousted.
But thanks to Mumbai Indians defeating Kolkata Knight Riders in the last league match of IPL 2019, Sunrisers found themselves in the top four. But in the Eliminator, they again lost out to Delhi Capitals which ended their journey in this year’s edition.