Sunrisers Hyderabad and Punjab Kings have let go of their captains from last season Kane Williamson and Mayank Agarwal respectively. The latter has already named a captain in Shikar Dhawan for the upcoming season and the former is yet to name one.
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Speaking to star sports former SRH coach Tom Moody said “Yeah, it’s going to be very interesting to see what the new management does at Sunrisers with regards to Kane, because you make a big decision to begin with in retaining a player like Kane Williamson. At the beginning of a major auction, you back him as your leader, everyone recognises that he’s one of the game’s great modern leaders.”
Kane Williamson scored 216 runs at an average of 19.64 and a strike rate of 93.51 SRH finished eighth in the table.
“Yes, he had a poor season, yes, he had injury problems over the last 12 months. But it’s clear they have made a decision to change such a significant pillar in what their future was going to look like when they first sat down before the big auction. I totally get the decision on the basis of the 14 crores, that’s a huge amount of money, particularly for a foreign player.” Moody added.
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Mayan Agarwal on the other hand similar returns last season as full-time captain. Struggled with the batting. The batter made 196 runs at an average of 16.33 and a strike rate of 122. Punjab has finished sixth last season.
Former Indian batter Sanjay Manjrekar said “See, it’s a very interesting case with Mayank Agarwal, for one, the price tag doesn’t help when you’ve had a bad season. There’s a temptation of releasing that player and using that money to maybe rebuy or you know, look at another option. But the thing about Mayank Agarwal? Too much of a nice guy, and this game is not for nice guys. I mean he had a phenomenal couple of seasons at the top of the order with KL Rahul. He actually out-batted KL Rahul at the top position, and became the captain and ideally you would want one more year for a guy to prove himself.”
Mayank Agarwal has given up his opening spot and went into the middle order to accommodate Jonny Bairstow at the top
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“And the worst thing that could have happened to him was that he sacrificed his opening position where he was phenomenal, and went down the order. This meant that batting became more difficult and the runs didn’t come, the pressure built up. So, I feel sorry for him, but he’ll be a very very attractive proposition for teams looking for an opener because this is the guy who’ll get you big scores and at a strike rate of 150, 160 and is good against both spin and pace.” Manjrekar added
