Flop XI of the first half of IPL 2019

Middle Order

#3 Manish Pandey - SRH

Manish was acquired by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for a sum of 11 crores.

The flamboyant right-hand top-order batsman, Pandey scored an unbeaten 114 for the Royal Challengers Bangalore against the Deccan Chargers in IPL 2009. As he became the first Indian to score a ton in the IPL. After appearing for few franchises, he was acquired by the Sunrisers Hyderabad for a sum of ₹11 crores which made him their most expensive buy in the 2018 IPL Player Auction and the Sunrisers instilled faith in him by retaining him for the 2019 edition too.

But 2019 IPL has been a dire season for the batsman. For the first matches of Sunrisers, Manish didn't get enough chances as he was batting quite down the order for the team. Conjointly, in the first 3 matches, Bairstow-Warner partnership single-handedly destroyed the opposition themselves. As the chances came along, he didn't take them well. In 6 matches this season he has just 54 runs with a disappointing strike-rate of 93.10.

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#4 Shimron Hetmyer - RCB

Shimron Hetmyer dropped after a poor run of performances for RCB

Shimron Hetmyer endeared himself to the Indian crowd with his six hitting ability during the Windies’ limited overs tour of India last year; the 22-year old scored 259 runs in 5 the ODIs – the runs being scored at a strike-rate of 140. Royal Challengers Bangalore snapped him up for a fee of ₹4.2 Crore at the Player Auction prior to VIVO IPL 2019.

Much was expected from the Guyana-born thus. But the dismal season of RCB was just not what he had hoped for. The 22-year-old has had a horrendous IPL so far, having got out for single-digit scores in every other occasion. In four matches, Hetmyer has scored 15 runs at an awful average of 3.75. Every other team has been able to get the better of the southpaw.

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#5 Yusuf Pathan - SRH

Yusuf Pathan of Sunrisers Hyderabad

The elder of the famous Pathan brothers, Yusuf is famed around the circuit as one of the ferocious strikers of the cricket ball and is valued as a big match player. Pathan was retained for ₹1.9 crores by SRH in the auction for the 2019 season.

But this has been a difficult season for middle-order batsmen of SRH, whether it be Manish Pandey, Deepak Hooda or Yusuf Pathan. The 36-year-old has not been hitting the ball nicely, averaging just 16 in this season of IPL thus far. Besides, with a strike-rate of below 87, is totally unacceptable. He really needs to spend some more time in the middle and also needs to step up his game, if he really wants to solve some of SRH's middle order problems this year.