One of the biggest question marks Sunrisers Hyderabad has had coming into the season, apart from Pat Cummins’ fitness, was the lack of a world-class spinner in their arsenal. “Well, I wanted 10 spinners, and I got 5, so I was close,” said head coach Daniel Vettori on Friday when asked about the auction strategy for the tweakers.
SRH had Harsh Dubey, who was brought last year and was creating waves across the country with his domestic performances, but the spin attack still lacked a big-name X-factor. The franchise took a chance on Zeeshan Ansari last season, which yielded moderate results, with him picking up six wickets from 10 games.
The woes resurfaced on the opening night against Royal Challengers Bengaluru when the bowling attack comprised of Harsh and medium pacers who could bowl slower-ball cutters; lacking the X-factor mystery spinner through the middle overs, which has become a necessity in modern T20 format. Sans X-factor spinner or even a reliable wirst-spinner, skipper Ishan Kishan was scratching his head to find wicket-taking options through the middle overs. In the game against the Kolkata Knight Riders, the side brought in Shivang Kumar, who grabbed his chance with both hands.
Fast forward to five games, Shivang, alongside Harsh, has become a go-to bowler for Ishan.
Harsh has picked up five wickets in this season so far, operating in both powerplay and through the middle overs. In the game against Lucknow Super Giants, Ishan trusted Harsh to bowl the crucial 18th over, and Harsh repaid his captain’s faith by picking up the wicket of Abdul Samad and just giving away six runs to create pressure on LSG in the chase, which eventually was dragged into the final over. “Harsh offers both sides of it, where it can be an attacking bowler and a defensive bowler,” Vettori said.
As for Shivang, he has been the middle over enforcer. He has picked up four wickets this season, and his best performance came in a losing cause against the Punjab Kings, where he was the lone warrior picking up 3/33 on a flat deck.
“Look, I think from a spin perspective, we wanted guys who are potential wicket takers because in Hyderabad at Uppal, it’s really hard to control the run-rate, so in between the boundaries, we want to have guys that have the opportunity to take wickets, and that’s why the two left unorthodox bowlers in Harsh and Shivang were so important,” Vettori said.
Speaking of the work Vettori himself has put in alongside Sri Lankan legendary spinner Muttiah Muralitharan with these young spinners to improve their game. The former New Zealand spinner said: “We’ve been able to put some time and effort into them, and most of the time it is around understanding the tactics of a T20 game because they’re all very skilful and can turn the ball, but bowling and Hyderabad is incredibly tough as a spinner. So we want to set the right expectations for them and then to have the confidence in the game to try some things, whether it be fields or style of bowling. So it’s more about giving those young guys the confidence to go out there like Sakib (Hussain) and Praful (Hinge) did in the last game that they can go out there and perform. We’ve seen that with Shivang and Harsh so far.”
