IPL 2021 suspension has played well for Sunrisers Hyderabad: Gavaskar

Former captain of team India, Sunil Gavaskar talked about how the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 suspension has played well for Sunrisers Hyderabad in his recent column for Sportstar.

After a poor start, David Warner was dropped from the captain position of SRH and later was eliminated from playing XI against Rajasthan Royals. That came as a shock for the IPL fans. This is the first time the team had such a bad start to the IPL league. SRH was placed at the end of the table with just two points scored in seven matches.

“Hyderabad will also get time to think about its decision to not just sack David Warner as the captain but even to drop him from the playing XI. Warner was getting runs but not in the same assertive manner of earlier years. Still, with little support from the others, those runs were precious. Yet, he was left out of the playing XI, which was strange. Without the cares of captaincy, he could have been the galvanizing batsman that the team needed,” Sunil Gavaskar wrote in the column.

Gavaskar thought the management’s decision of leaving out Warner, despite him scoring 193 runs and averaging over 32, to be "strange".

Sunil Gavaskar added, “While the rights and wrongs of dropping him as captain could well be debated for long, the question that needs to be asked is if captains can be changed midway, why can’t coaches be treated the same? In football, the moment a team starts faltering, it’s the manager who is shown the exit door, so why not in cricket too?"

Gavaskar wrote that the team would have been relieved that IPL 2021 has been suspended. According to him, this decision would have given them time to introspect and reflect on what went wrong in this season.

“Sunrisers Hyderabad had a forgettable beginning and would have been relieved that the event had to be suspended...the suspension could well be a blessing in disguise as it allows time for a calm, cool and proper introspection rather than in the hurly-burly of the tournament itself,” Gavaskar wrote.