After winning six of their 13 completed games, SRH finished sixth, mainly thanks to the three wins in a row at the end of the league stage.
What’s new in IPL 2026
SRH went into the last auction with INR 25.50 crore and spent more than half of it – 13 crore – on Liam Livingstone. The allrounder has been out of England’s T20 plans for a year now and has hardly made a mark in T20 leagues since the Vitality Blast in September 2025, which brings a lot of curiosity around SRH almost emptying their purse for him.
Their other major change compared to 2025 was a lot more understandable as they traded out Mohammed Shami, who was expensive last IPL and picked up only six wickets in 30 overs.
They also released the hard-hitting Abhinav Manohar, legspinners Adam Zampa and Rahul Chahar, seam-bowling allrounder Wiaan Mulder and Simarjeet Singh. They have tried to fill those gaps with Shivam Mavi and plenty of lesser-known Indian names such as batter Salil Arora, fast bowler Onkar Tarmale, legspinner Amit Kumar, left-arm wristspinners Shivang Kumar and Krains Fuletra, medium-pacer Sakib Hussain and fast bowler Praful Hinge.
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How these domestic names fill in for the bigger international names the franchise let go of earlier might decide how far SRH go because their batting muscle is unquestionable. Arora, the big-hitting finisher, is likely to start ahead of Aniket Verma.
They will be a little handicapped early on as their regular captain Pat Cummins is expected to miss the first few matches.
Who’s out, who’s in doubt?
SRH have been dealt a big blow as Cummins won’t be starting the season because of a back injury and Ishan Kishan will lead until then. SRH also lost pace-bowling allrounder Jack Edwards to a foot injury and have replaced him with left-arm quick David Payne. They may also be without Eshan Malinga initially, who missed the T20 World Cup with a shoulder dislocation and was undergoing rehab in Sri Lanka recently.
Likely best XII
1 Travis Head*, 2 Abhishek Sharma, 3 Ishan Kishan (capt, wk), 4 Nitish Kumar Reddy, 5 Heinrich Klaasen*, 6 Liam Livingstone*, 7 Salil Arora, 8 Brydon Carse*, 9 Harsh Dubey/Krains Fuletra, 10 Harshal Patel, 11 Shivam Mavi/Zeeshan Ansari, 12 Jaydev Unadkat
*overseas player
Travis Head and Abhishek Sharma walk back after their demolition job AFP/Getty ImagesBig questionWatch out for
Guess which spinner in the SRH squad has the most IPL wickets? It’s Livingstone, with 13, and next best is their opening batter Abhishek Sharma, with 11. In the absence of a known frontline spinner, barring Zeeshan Ansari, all eyes will be on how SRH fill up the spinners’ quotas, especially on tracks that assist turn as the league progresses and pitches deteriorate.
That will put the spotlight on their young guns Shivang (23) and Fuletra (21), both left-arm wristspinners. What’s even more intriguing is that Shivang has played just four T20s, for Madhya Pradesh, while Fuletra has just two to his name, for Saurashtra. Shivang might pip Fuletra in the starting XI because of his batting exploits but Fuletra had also been named the Emerging Player of the Season in Saurashtra’s T20 League last year.
Key stats
SRH were the only team in IPL 2025 who finished with a run rate of over ten per over
They also leaked a lot of runs and had the third-worst economy rate of 9.9, behind Lucknow Super Giants and Rajasthan Royals
SRH were also the only team to go beyond 250 in the last IPL and they did it twice: in their first and in their final match
When SRH had chased down 246 against Punjab Kings, they had pulled off the second-highest chase in IPL history