Courtesy: IPL
Sunrisers Hyderabad, the IPL 2024 finalist, are reportedly set to retain South African player Heinrich Klaasen as their first pick for the upcoming season for a whopping INR 23 Crore, 27.7% above the top slab of INR 18 Crore. Apart from the right-handed batter, SRH have also planned to retain their captain Pat Cummins from Australia for INR 18 crore, while Indian batter Abhishek Sharma is expected to earn INR 14 Crore as their third retained player.
Notably, the deadline to announce the IPL retentions for all the franchises is October 31 after which the mega auction of players for the 2025 season will commence. With the plans from SRH to keep Pat Cummins in the team, the Australian fast bowler is all but certain to let him captain the franchise in the IPL next year after he became the second-most expensive buy at the mini auction for INR 20.50 Crore.
SRH are also likely to retain Travis Head and Nitish Kumar Reddy for the IPL 2025 season
In the recently concluded IPL 2024 season, Sunrisers Hyderabad performed exceptionally with the bat, scoring three of the four highest team totals in the history of the tournament. SRH got 287/3 against RCB in Bengaluru, the highest team total of all-time in the IPL, apart from notching up 277/3 against MI in Hyderabad and 266/7 against DC in Delhi in the space of a couple of months.
The three batters who were responsible for this blitz hitting in Sunrisers Hyderabad colours were Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, and Heinrich Klaasen. While Head scored 567 runs in 15 matches at a strike-rate of 191.55, his opening partner Sharma got 484 runs in 16 matches at a strike-rate of 204.21, and Klaasen ended up with 479 runs in 16 matches at a strike-rate of 191.55.
Meanwhile, T Natarajan was the highest wicket-taker for SRH with 19 scalps in 14 matches, while the captain Pat Cummins also ended up taking 18 wickets in 16 matches.
