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A plethora of changes are lined up by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) ahead of the start of IPL 2022. One of these spoken about changes pertains to the mega auction of IPL 2022 wherein each team is allowed to retain a maximum of 3 players. These three players could be – one Indian player and two overseas or two Indian players and one overseas.
Knowing that the salaries of the retained players shall also be deducted from the auction purses of the respective teams, BCCI has also decided upon increasing the purse amount from INR 85 crore to 90 crore for all the sides.
Talking about the underdogs of the cash-rich league, SRH, the side has out-performed everyone’s expectations in each of their IPL editions they have been a part of. But the suspended IPL 2021 season is certainly their worst-ever as they have managed to register only one win out of the 7 matches played so far. Additionally, their marquee and charismatic captain, David Warner was also dropped from his role. So, who are the players, SRH could plan on retaining and why?
3 players SRH could retain in 2022 IPL mega auction:
1. Bhuvneshwar Kumar
He is undoubtedly one of India’s finest bowlers, however, it seems that he is underrated. Bhuvneshwar not only brings in experience, but also adds finesse to a bowling line-up. Having picked up 139 wickets in just 126 games in the cash-rich league, the two-time purple cap holder (2016 and 2017) remains to be one of mainstream fast bowlers of the Indian bowling line-up.
Moreover, Bhuvi is an extremely economical bowler who knows how to share his experience with the younger pacers as well. Meanwhile, knowing that he is coming on the back of impressive performance against Sri Lanka, the SRH management can be assured of his bowling expertise in the death overs as well.
2. Rashid Khan
If there was one spinner who could turn the tables around in favour of SRH at any given point, it would be the Afghanistan spinner Rashid Khan. His four overs are not only known to be economical ones but can also break the defence of top-rated batsmen. Rashid's elite bucket of variations in bowling keeps his unpredictability intact. With that being said, Rashid Khan remains to be one of the clear-cut retaining option for SRH.
In his 69 matches so far in the Indian Premier League, Rashid has been able to register 85 wickets against his name. Talking about his batting abilities, he contains the quality to knock the ball out of the boundary lines with ease and also has an impressive strike rate of over 147 in his IPL career.
3. Manish Pandey
If SRH were to go for an Indian cricketer, one of the most underrated batsmen, Manish Pandey will be their go-to option. Having been acquired since 2018, Pandey has improved his scoring tally for the team in each of the successive IPL editions. Moreover in just 5 appearances so far in the suspended IPL 2021, he managed to score 193 runs at an average of more than 48.
Not only is Manish Pandey a reliable top-order Indian batsman but can also take the innings deep. Although some cricket fanatics have criticized him in the past for eating up to many balls to score big, Pandey seemed to working his way up in the recently concluded international tour.