IPL 2023: Ex-SRH coach Tom Moody raises concern on team's batting unit for lacking left-hander's option

Former Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Tom Moody is concerned about the team’s lack of depth with the left-hand batters after they suffered their second defeat of the season. The 2016 champions had only one recognised left-hand batter in the team on Friday against Lucknow Super Giants as they failed to make any impact on the contest. SRH lost the match by five wickets and are rooted to the table of the Indian Premier League (IPL) with the season still in its early days.

"The thing that screams out to me is that they left the auction table knowing they had a team full of right-handers," Moody said on ESPNcricinfo's T20 Time Out.

"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.

SRH left one of the star performers from last season out of the team, in Abhishek Sharma. He was one of the left-hand options in the team but was frozen out of the side, but Moody is now concerned about the team’s chances in the IPL as they will fail to play the mind games with the opposition.

"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."

What happened in the LSG contest?

Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) were back to the winning ways after they beat Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) on Friday, April 7 by five wickets and 24 balls to spare in a one-sided contest. The win saw LSG go top of the table on net run rate while SRH stay rooted in the early days of the season. Skipper KL Rahul (35) looked in great touch with the bat while Krunal Pandya scalped three wickets.

SRH will take on unbeaten Punjab Kings at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Sunday, April 9.

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