IPL 2019: Top 3 SRH batsmen to watch out for 

The 12th edition of Indian Premier League is expected to get underway on March 23 and Chennai Super Kings and Royal Challengers Bangalore are set to lock horns in the season opener.

Runners-up of the last season, Sunrisers Hyderabad is one of the most underrated teams in the history of IPL. Last three seasons have been quite good for the franchise as they won the IPL in 2016, qualified for playoffs in 2017 and were the runners-up in 2018.

The Hyderabad based franchise will be looking forward to winning their second IPL title as they have a quite formidable squad for the upcoming edition of IPL. As always, their bowling will be their biggest strength, but their batting is not to be discounted either.

Here, we take a look at three batsmen from Sunrisers Hyderabad to watch out for.

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#3 Manish Pandey

Manish Pandey will want to make a mark in the forthcoming edition of IPL

The extremely talented right-hand batsman, Manish Pandey shot to prominence when he became the first Indian batsman to hit a century in IPL 2009 at a very young age of 18. He had slammed 114 runs off 73 balls with the help of 10 fours and 4 sixes in that innings. Since then, he has been a consistent performer in IPL.

But the Karnataka batsman had a forgettable IPL season last year after being purchased by Sunrisers Hyderabad for a whopping sum of ₹11 crore. He could not live up to his price tag as he could not perform according to his caliber and was unimpressive. This season, he will surely want to do well for his franchise SRH.

So far, the 29-year-old has played a total of 118 matches in IPL and has scored 2499 runs from them at an average of 28.08 and a strike rate of 119.57 with 114 being his highest score. Meanwhile, he has hit 12 fifties and 1 hundred.

Sunrisers Hyderabad has retained Manish Pandey for the upcoming edition of IPL despite his poor show last season. SRH will expect Manish Pandey to shine with the bat this time around.

It will be interesting to watch if Manish Pandey could meet the expectations of fans and his franchise in IPL 2019.

#2 Kane Williamson

Kane Williamson be one of the main players for SRH in IPL 2019

The stalwart kiwi batsman, Kane Williamson is one the best batsman in the world across formats. Last year in the absence of David Warner, Williamson emerged as an excellent captain and batsman for SRH as he led the side to the finals of the IPL and also won the Orange Cap.

In IPL 2018, he scored 735 runs from 17 matches at a tremendous average of 52.50 and a strike-rate of 142.44 with 84 being his highest score.

As far as Williamson's overall IPL numbers are concerned, he has scored 1146 runs from 32 matches at an average of 42.44 and a strike rate of 137.41. He has slammed 11 fifties in his IPL career.

It will be fascinating to watch if Williamson can repeat his last year's performance in the upcoming season as well. It will also be interesting to see if he will captain SRH after the return of their first choice captain Warner.

#1 David Warner

David Warner will surely want to make his IPL comeback memorable

The devastating left-hand batsman from Australia, David Warner will be making his comeback in IPL after the ball-tampering saga last year. During the ban period, Warner was seen playing in different T20 leagues like Global T20 Canada, Caribbean Premier League, and Bangladesh Premier league but his performance in these leagues was not up to the mark as he didn't perform as per his potential.

The 32-year-old is one of the best openers in the history of IPL and his numbers are quite impressive. He has scored 4014 runs from 114 innings in the tournament at an impressive average of 40.55 and strike rate of 142.14, with 126 being his highest score. He has smashed 36 fifties and 3 centuries in his IPL career.

Warner's return will surely strengthen SRH's batting as he has been their best batsman in last few seasons. It will be worth watching if Warner will be able to continue his purple patch in IPL.