Nothing is stopping SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) from bettering their last season’s result, coach Daniel Vettori said ahead of their tournament opener against Rajasthan Royals in IPL 2025. However, that’s not even the most worrying warning for all teams; Vettori added that SRH’s batting, which made headlines last season for deploying a fearless approach, will remain ultra-aggressive this season.

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SRH scored the bulk of runs last season, including registering three of the top five highest team totals, the first two being the most in tournament history. Their attacking approach crushed everyone coming their way, barring the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), which beat them to win their third IPL title.

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With Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma at the top and Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Heinrich Klaasen coming down the order, SRH perhaps has the most-daunting batting top five this season, with Vettori sending warning signs to all teams to remain beware.

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"Whatever ground we go to, we have an understanding that the batting team is going to be aggressive. The only thing that can mitigate that is the pitch, but most times, the pitches in IPL are very flat,” Vettori said at the pre-game presser.

Vettori said the teams know what to expect from the IPL venues as they prepare strategies accordingly. The former New Zealand captain added that team skipper Pat Cummins cleared the agenda earlier, informing everyone of the template they wish to follow this season.

"When you come to these grounds, you know exactly what to expect. You know how the batsmen are going come against you. It's quite…..maybe not fun is the right word; it's a good challenge for a bowling group to try and work their way through that.

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"That's what Pat [Cummins, the captain] addressed the bowling group the other day. He said the expectation is on the batters to do all the work, score the runs, and the bowlers can sort of feed into that. If we get those days to make it all work, it's going go a long way in us winning games. The onus on the batting group to score runs and for the bowlers to be able to mitigate that,” he continued.

‘Expectations bring excitement’

SRH came close to winning their second IPL title last year, only for them to falter on the day when it mattered the most. 

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Come IPL 2025, fans are expecting them to go one notch ahead and clinch the trophy. 

"Expectations bring some excitement," he said. "Expectations are built around the performances of last year and the quality of the team we've been able to put together at the back end of last season and into the auction.

"As a franchise, we're really excited about the season because we have that foundation from the five players [Cummins, Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Reddy, Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma] we retained, and how well they performed last year, hopefully, we have the squad to perform as well this year if not better,” Vettori noted. 

(With inputs from agencies)