Sunrisers Hyderabad left hoping Kane Williamson pulls through

Marco Jansen, Romario Shepherd and Sean Abbott came through the door on day two of the auction - but will they live to regret a one-eyed strategy?

Sunrisers Hyderabad splashed virtually their entire purse during the IPL mega auction and yet have ended up with an unbalanced squad ahead of the 2022 edition.

There is a strong bowling attack with T Natarajan and Bhuvneshwar Kumar joined by the likes of day two recruits Marco Jansen, Romario Shepherd and Sean Abbott

But they have again failed to address their middle-order fragilities, relying on skipper Kane Williamson, over whom there is an injury concern, coming through.

For a side that struggled desperately in the 2021 edition of the tournament, many of the deals across both days of the auction had a hint of desperation to them.

^{Bhuvneshwar Kumar} (Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images)

Sunrisers splashed out a combined 11.5 crore (£1.9 million) on bowling all-rounder Washington Sundar and wicketkeeper-batsman Nicholas Pooran alone on day one, and day two saw similarly misguided spending.

Their biggest deal of day two saw the arrival of Romario Shepherd for 7.75 crore (£758,000), 10 times his base amount of 75 lakh, and whilst his performances can be eye-catching they are too irregular.

The franchise seemed to pay over the odds in the wrong places and failed to adequately replace Jonny Bairstow and former-captain David Warner, although Rahul Tripathi may prove a decent purchase despite the 8.5 crore price tag (£832,000).

And in an auction that saw young Indian stars Shreyas Iyer and Ishan Kishan on the move, the decision to spend big money on the likes of Washington Sundar and Nicholas Pooran may come back to haunt the 2016 champions.

They fared slightly better in constructing their bowling attack with the arrival of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who will surely overcome his own poor form in 2021.

Marco Jansen (Rodger Bosch/AFP/Getty Images)

Kumar will likely lead a potential bowling attack of Natarajan, Sundar, Marco Jansen and Shreyas Gopal, who cost a combined 21.19 crore (£2,145,000), punctuated by a firey spell from Shepherd.

Sunrisers struggled to regularly build a defendable score last year and although several of their new acquisitions can find the boundary on their day there are no sure-fire performers.

Williamson has swerved a bout of surgery to fix a long-term elbow problem and his fitness will be imperative if Sunrisers are to avoid another listless campaign.

Sunrisers Hyderabad squad: Kane Williamson, Abdul Samad, Umran Malik, Washington Sundar, Nicholas Pooran, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Priyam Garg, Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, Kartik Tyagi, Shreyas Gopal, Jagadeesha Suchith, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Romario Shepherd, Sean Abbott, R Samarth, Shashank Singh, Saurabh Dubey, Vishnu Vinod, Glenn Phillips, Fazalhaq Farooqi