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The Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) were boom or bust in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. The ultra-aggressive approach adopted by Pat Cummins’ team didn’t pay off in the early stages of the tournament. SRH won just three of their first ten matches. They won their last three matches, which took them to the sixth position of the points table, but overall, they have had a poor run.
There wasn’t much wrong with SRH’s approach, but several players were out of form. Others were new and took time to adapt, or didn’t quite perform to the level expected. Reports suggest that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has set November 15 as the deadline for announcing retentions. And the IPL 2026 auction will take place between December 13 and 15.
Predicted SRH retention list for IPL 2026
SRH had spent INR 75 crore of the total 120 on retaining five players: Cummins (INR 18 crore), Travis Head (INR 14 crore), Abhishek Sharma (INR 14 crore), Heinrich Klaasen (INR 23 crore), and Nitish Kumar Reddy (INR 6 crore). Despite having just INR 45 crore left, they got names like Ishan Kishan (INR 11.25 crore) and Mohammed Shami (10 crore) at big price tags.
The issue they had was that things didn’t click. They’ll need to tweak a thing or two, which would mean some players might go out, but the majority of the players will stay for the IPL 2026 season.
Big names safe
Let’s talk about the big guns. Klaasen had a good season, with 487 runs at 44.27 and a 172.69 strike rate. But it couldn’t have the same impact due to the top order struggling. Cummins did better than last year, but he isn’t a natural wicket-taker, and while his leadership is commendable, the tactics were questionable at times.
In the first nine innings, Abhishek played a 141-run knock but scored 99 runs in the remaining. After that, he caught fire. Head was the exact opposite; he tailed off in the latter half. Coming from an injury, Nitish was like a deer in the headlights. He bowled just 5 overs and scored 182 runs at 22.75 and a 118.95 strike rate.
Great future prospects
But all of these will continue. They have the talent, a proven track record, and, for most of them, a lot left to give to SRH. The same goes for Harshal Patel, Jayden Unadkat, Aniket Verma, Kamindu Mendis, Harsh Dubey, Eshan Malinga, and Zeeshan Ansari.
Barring Harshal and Unadkat, who are tried and tested players, the others are great future prospects. Except for Harshal, who was bought for INR 8 crore, the costliest player among those mentioned is Eshan, who SRH got for just INR 1.20 crore. Atharva Taide and Smaran Ravichandran are great prospects as well. Taide played one game while Smaran was ruled out with an injury.
But everyone else who hasn’t been mentioned might be in trouble.
SRH squad before IPL 2026 auction
Pat Cummins (C)
, Sachin Baby, Travis Head, Abhinav Manohar, Atharva Taide, Aniket Verma, Smaran Ravichandran (injured), Heinrich Klaasen (WK), Ishan Kishan (WK), Harshal Patel, Wiaan Mulder, Kamindu Mendis, Abhishek Sharma, Harsh Dubey, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Mohammed Shami, Jaydev Unadkat, Brydon Carse (injured), Simarjeet Singh, Eshan Malinga, Adam Zampa (replaced), Rahul Chahar, Zeeshan Ansari
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