Hours after David Warner briefed the press on the ball-tampering saga with teary eyes, the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) announced his replacement in the forthcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The Orange Army has recruited English opener Alex Hales to replace its former captain in the competition. Hales was bought at his base price of Rs 1 crore from the Registered and Available Player Pool (RAPP) list.
Alex Hales is now the second English player in the SRH camp after Chris Jordan. He is the only English batsmen in the top-10 ICC T20I batsmen list. Also, he is the only player with a T20I ton for his country. Hales has played 52 T20I games so far and has scored 1456 runs at an average of 31.65 with a strike-rate of over 136. However, he went unsold earlier in the IPL 2018 mega-auction.
ALSO READ: David Warner Breaks Down, Says ‘May Not Represent Australia Again’
Breaking news: Alex Hales, the hard hitting English batsman has joined the #OrangeArmy ! pic.twitter.com/6j4kuSCuXa
— SunRisers Hyderabad (@SunRisers) March 31, 2018
Earlier on March 29, New Zealand skipper Kane Williamson was named as the SRH skipper. Williamson is the sixth captain of this side after Kumar Sangakkara (2013), Cameron White (2013), Shikhar Dhawan (2013-14), Darren Sammy (2014), Warner (2015-17) were the previous five captains of the SRH side.
ALSO READ: IPL 2018: Rajasthan Royals Likely To Replace Steve Smith With Heinrich Klaasen
The SRH won their first-ever IPL trophy in the year 2016 under the leadership of David Warner. They defeated Royal Challengers Bangalore to lift the trophy. Warner is also one of the top batsmen in the tournament. He has scored 2579 runs in 59 innings he played at an outstanding average of 52.63 with a strike-rate of 147.70 and 160 sixes. He is also the most consistent captains with a win percentage of 57.77.
ALSO READ: Kane Williamson Named Captain Of Sunrisers Hyderabad
Now in the absence of Warner, the SRH will face Rajasthan Royals in their first match on April 9 at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium, Hyderabad.
Here’s the squad:
Shakib Al Hasan, Yusuf Pathan, Shikhar Dhawan, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Shreevats Goswami (wk), Siddarth Kaul, Manish Pandey, Mohammad Nabi, Bipul Sharma, Kane Williamson (c), Chris Jordan, Carlos Brathwaite, Sandeep Sharma, Alex Hales, Sachin Baby, Mehdi Hasan, Ricky Bhui, Deepak Hooda, Billy Stanlake, T Natarajan, Tanmay Agarwal, Basil Thampi, Rashid Khan, K Khaleel Ahmed
