‘They left the auction with a team full of right-handers’ – Tom Moody highlights Sunrisers Hyderabad’s one-dimensional batting line-up

Former Sunrisers Hyderabad coach, Tom Moody opined that the franchise’s one-dimensional batting order could be ‘exposed’ in the turning tracks in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023. Notably, Lucknow Super Giants brushed aside Hyderabad, courtesy of a clinical all-round performance by Krunal Pandya, at the Bharat Ratna Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Cricket Stadium, in Lucknow, on Friday, April 7.

Playing in the slow, turning track in Lucknow, SRH could only manage to get a paltry 121 runs on the board. Tom Moody, who won the league title with the franchise in 2016, expressed that the vast number of right-handers could expose the side going forward in the competition, especially in the turning tracks.

"The thing that screams out to me is that they left the auction table knowing they had a team full of right-handers. They released a left-hander in Nicholas Pooran who hit the winning run [for Lucknow on Friday] and they brought someone who was 30% more expensive, who is a right-hander [Harry Brook], similar sort of impact player,” Moody said on ESPNcricinfo's segment, ‘T20 Time Out’.

"They left out Abhishek Sharma, a left-hander, so there's a lot of things to unpack. When they're going to play on surfaces like that, when there is that tendency where you can be exposed by being very one dimensional on slow turning tracks, you are sitting ducks,” added Moody.

Notably, Washington Sundar was the only left-hander featuring in the XI for SRH against LSG as the side decided to drop Abhishek Sharma for Anmolpreet Singh. LSG spinners dominated the rival batting line-up as the likes of Krunal, veteran spinner Amit Mishra, and Ravi Bishnoi got six wickets between them in the first innings.

Aiden Markram-led Sunrisers have lost two games on the trot and will need to up the ante to obtain results in their favour. SRH head back home as they will host Punjab Kings at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium on Sunday, April 9 in their next outing.