Yuvraj Singh's presence will be missed: Tom Moody

Tom Moody also brushed aside concerns over recent form of some of the key batsmen like Eoin Morgan and Kane Williamson © AFP

One reason that severely hampered Sunrisers Hyderabad's campaign in the last edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) was a shaky middle-order.
The franchise identified the problem and made some crucial buys in the player auction in February earlier this year. 

One of Hyderabad's major investment was to snap up Yuvraj Singh, who fetched INR 14 crore and 16 crore respectively in the previous two player auctions, for a relatively cut-price deal of INR 7 crore. Yuvraj, however, suffered an injury during the latter stages of the recently-concluded World T20 and will be out of action for two weeks in the IPL. While Tom Moody, the Sunrisers coach, bemoaned the Indian star's absence, he was quick to note that his swift recovery would be of paramount importance to the franchise. 

"Yuvi (Yuvraj) is a big loss. He's a match winner and he has proved that. He has played a lot of franchise cricket here. His presence will be missed but what's important is he recovers as quickly as possible. Within couple of weeks he'll be back into consideration but a lot will depend on his meetings with the specialists. We are hopeful it won't be too long," Moody said in a pre-match press conference in Bangalore on April 11 (Monday).

While they cope with Yuvraj's absence, Sunrisers will hope for David Warner, skipper of the side, to set the tone early in the season. Batting at No. 4 for Australia in the World T20, Warner managed just 38 runs in four games at an abysmal average of 9.50, but Moody is not worried about the pugnacious left-hander's form and hinted at slotting him back at the top of the order.

"The thing with Warner is, as he showed it with us two years ago, that he can bat anywhere. He was phenomenal in the way he batted at No. 4 for us in the campaign when we had half the games in the UAE.

"As we saw last year in our campaign, Warner is a destructive at the top of the order. You can ask any opening bowler in world cricket whether they'll be happy to see him at No. 1 or No. 4 and you'll get the answer that they'll rather see him coming in a bit later.

"The dilemma that Australians had was that they had four people who could open the batting and he was the easy one to shift. Whether he was the right one to shift, is the argument," Moody opined.

The former Australian also brushed aside concerns over recent form of some of the key batsmen like Eoin Morgan and Kane Williamson. "They are professionals, high class performers and we've worked very hard in the last few days. All of them are striking the ball well. This is a different campaign, different team, different opportunity and I'm sure all of them will thrive and have a successful campaign. 

Sunrisers begin their IPL 2016 campaign against the Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Chinnaswamy stadium in Bangalore on Tuesday (April 12).