Sunrisers Hyderabad’s spin-bowling coach Muttiah Muralitharan feels that the Orange Army has a 80% perfect squad for the IPL 2022 season. The IPL 2022 Mega Auction happened recently, where SRH signed players like Rahul Tripathi, Aiden Markram, Washington Sundar, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, T Natarajan and several others.
Their most expensive pick was Nicholas Pooran, for whom the Sunrisers Hyderabad spent INR 10.75 crore. However, as per Muttiah Muralitharan, Pooran was not the team’s first-choice wicket-keeper. Instead, they wanted to sign Ishan Kishan.
Ishan was the most expensive pick in the entire IPL 2022 Auction. The Mumbai Indians shelled out a whopping INR 15.25 crore to re-sign the former Indian U-19 cricket team captain. Speaking to Sportskeeda, Muttiah Muralitharan said:
“I would say we’ve got 80 percent of our plans right. We didn’t get the remaining 20 percent right because we couldn’t acquire Ishan Kishan. Had we purchased him, it would’ve been a perfect squad. We’re quite pleased with Nicholas Pooran’s addition though.”
Muttiah Muralitharan explained why the Sunrisers Hyderabad did not target Jonny Bairstow
While the Sunrisers Hyderabad failed to sign Ishan Kishan, they could have targeted their former wicket-keeper batter Jonny Bairstow. In the previous seasons, Bairstow was a match-winner for the Hyderabad-based franchise. This year, he will play for the Punjab Kings.
However, Muralitharan said that the team management was unsure if Bairstow would be available for the entire season, which is why they went for Nicholas Pooran. The West Indies players will be available to play for the full IPL 2022 season, which is why SRH preferring Pooran makes sense.
Muralitharan has already confirmed that Abhishek Sharma will open the innings for the team alongside captain Kane Williamson. With some big-hitters like Nicholas Pooran and Abdul Samad in the squad, fans should expect big scores from the SRH team in IPL 2022.
