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Follow UsIf you want to know just how cruel sport can be, look no further than what happened in the final of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 tonight in Chennai.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) entered the game as not just finalists, but history-makers. They’d pretty much shattered every possible batting record in the IPL book and had ensured through their performances that they’ll be talked about for years to come — regardless of whether they win the trophy.
But a record-breaking season like theirs ended in the most brutal fashion imaginable, with SRH posting the most unwanted of all records — the lowest total in a final in the history of the competition.
The most exciting, revolutionary team this tournament has seen in years ended up saving its worst for the last and bowed out in the worst fashion imaginable. Sometimes, it is what it is.
Still, despite the abject surrender in the final, Sunrisers can leave holding their head high. A generic, clichéd statement like this is usually (in fact, almost always) used as a cope, but this is one of those rare occasions where the claim is actually true and not just words of fake consolation.
When Pat Cummins and Daniel Vettori took over the reins at the start of the season, this Sunrisers side was truly a team in complete disarray.
They had finished bottom of the table in IPL 2023 with just four wins in 14 games, but the league position of the side was far from the biggest issue. This was a franchise that had completely lost its identity to the extent that it had become unrecognisable.
Peak SRH, the SRH of 2016 to 2020, was defined by its togetherness and spirit. It was a franchise that, on paper, was an underdog but still punched above its weight and competed with the other giants by being more than the sum of its parts. SRH, at its best, was the ultimate blue-collar worker side.
But by the end of last season, it felt like SRH was no longer that. The franchise looked not only broken but rotten to an extent. A team once known for its inseparability was filled with conflicts and controversies. There was no vision, leadership or direction. The future looked bleak.
In that sense, IPL 2024 is, without question, the best thing to happen to the Sunrisers in a very long time. Forget the on-field results, forget the jump from 10th to second. It now feels like the franchise is back on track again, in terms of the values it once stood for; the same values that made it what it was.
Between 2020 and 2023, SRH were hitting one low after another. Everything started to spiral after the David Warner controversy. By the end of last season, the club pretty much had no connect with its fans whatsoever.
Come IPL 2024, there’s remarkably been a 180-degree turn in the span of two months, in terms of fan support particularly.
Winning, of course, has played a big part in fueling this change. But equally, Cummins, Vettori & Co.'s dressing room reset has made an immeasurable difference to how the team is perceived by fans and outsiders.
A year ago, not a single soul was envious of SRH as a franchise. But we’ve now come to a point where people can’t stop showering praise on this side. The togetherness seems to be back, the players seem like a closely knit group again and the connect between the fans and the players looks to be stronger than ever.
Optics are only optics, of course, but the vibes this group has given off are incomparable to what it was last year or even the last three years. For the first time in half a decade, SRH has looked like a ‘team’.
In that sense, what’s been done is nothing short of a sensational repair job. You’ve got to give credit to the individuals who have made it happen — the captain, coach, support staff and the players — but also the ownership for facilitating this change.
All this and we’ve not even got to the results part. As was mentioned above, SRH entered IPL 2024 having finished in the bottom-half in the last two seasons. In the season they did not finish bottom (IPL 2022), they finished 8th.
In just the space of two months, then, the Sunrisers have managed to go from write-offs to finalists. They’ve also, in the process, managed to become history-makers and have gone from being the most boring and forgettable side to being one of the most exciting sides in T20 history.
Not to mention, they’ve set themselves a platform for the future while fixing the present. Finishing second is sweet, but the sweeter part for SRH is what lies ahead. They’ve unearthed a superstar in Abhishek Sharma, and the likes of Nitish Reddy, Shahbaz Ahmed, Travis Head and skipper Cummins look certain to keep the franchise at the very top for the foreseeable future.
In the aftermath of the victory against Rajasthan Royals, skipper Cummins said that his side had achieved the goal they’d set for themselves at the start of the season: making it to the final.
It understandably must be crushing to falter in the final the way they did, but still, for SRH, the future is bright.
If they can keep hold of this core, they will be back competing for the title next season. And, sooner or later, they will get their hands on the coveted trophy once again.
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