Behind SRH early exit: Lack of quick-fix cricketer like Shahbaz Ahmed, and Impact Subs who made little impact | Ipl News

Last season when Sunrisers Hyderabad had taken the IPL storm their aggressive, high-risk approach Shahbaz Ahmed’s performance had flown under the radar. While the likes of Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma played the lead role with Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Pat Cummins playing the support cast, Shabhaz contribution was no less. In a star-studded line-up, it was his all-round performance that helped Hyderabad overcome Rajasthan Royals in the Qualifier II. He was as valuable member of the squad who went about doing his job without flair.
It was not a season where his performance screamed for retention, but it was Shahbaz who slotted in a role that bridged the batting line-up and the bowling unit. Whenever the side needed a quick fix with the bat or ball, they would turn to Shahbaz, who invariably delivered, scoring 215 runs and picking up 7 wickets. Fast forward to 2025, as SRH failed to make the play-offs, all through the season they struggled to find a player who could be their crisis man like Shahbaz. Coming lower down the order, he provided depth with the bat apart from playing the role of the second spinner.
Cummins did throw the ball to Abhishek a few times early season, but it failed to give the desired results. The constant tussle through the season to maintain that balance, adapting to different conditions across the country, impacted the spot of the fourth overseas player, which kept changing. With Cummins, Head and Klaasen being certainties, Adam Zampa slotted in for a couple of games and coming up with an average performance before a shoulder injury sidelined him from the tournament.
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Hyderabad then turned to Wiaan Mulder, a fast bowling all-rounder, who did get a game but could not make much of an impact in the opportunities he got both with the bat and ball. They shuffled the pack and somehow stumbled upon Kamindu Mendis, who more or less performs the role that Shahbaz executed last season. Mendis’ record in T20s for Sri Lanka has been quite ordinary (391 runs @ 19.05 with bat, 2 wickets @ 74.00 with ball), and for SRH so far, with his ambidextrous bowling and skilful batting down the order, he did show promise, but it was too little to salvage games.
The other problem which surfaced throughout the season was the struggles of seamers. Mohammed Shami has had a season to forget, and skipper Cummins and Harshal Patel blew hot and cold through the campaign. Young Simarjeet Singh, too, just lived on potential. With their bowler struggling to find form, it handicapped SRH’s bowling options in the powerplay and in the death overs on flatter decks in Hyderabad. The management tried their luck with Eeshan Malinga, which shortened the already struggling batting order as he came in the place of Mendis.
When Cummins and Daniel Vettori took over the leadership from Aiden Markram and Brian Lara, who finished 10th in 2023, the standout feature was the stability in the side that was brought in. This season, though, while the performances have not been up to the mark from some of the big overseas names, there has also been too much chopping and changing for the fourth overseas slot, which has never let the balance of the side settle.
No impact from Impact Subs
One of the strangest impact substitutes made this season was when SRH brought in Rahul Chahar against Mumbai Indians at the Wankhede stadium. After Shami delivered three expensive overs, he was replaced Chahar. On a wicket which was on the slower side, SRH turning to Chahar as an impact sub halfway through the second innings did make sense at the time, but what was baffling was that he ended up bowling only a single over.
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That has not been just a one-off case where an impact player failed to make a notable contribution. It was a recurring theme through the tournament where the player coming in had nothing to show for the end of the game. While some teams have been quite rigid with the players they use as impact subs, depending on whether they are batting and bowling first, SRH and their opponents for tomorrow, Delhi Capitals, have been quite flexible with the usage of their substitutes and have looked to go horses for courses. Although SRH did have a similar practice last season, despite the diminishing results then the side managed to win games regardless of the impact players used. However this season with results not going their way, it has come under sharp focus. While some of these substitutions in the bowling department were made to suit the conditions, on a couple of occasions the impact subs (Mulder was used vs DC; Abhinav Manohar was used vs MI) were forced upon them the batting collapses occurring in the first innings, which needed reinforcements to elongate the batting line-up.