Prior to the 2022 edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) face a big setback as Simon Katich has resigned from his post as assistant head coach in a rather surprising way, according to reports. The resignation comes after the franchise’s top-brass went against the pre-auction plans in the recently-concluded mega-auctions, held in Bengaluru.
According to reports from NewsCorp, it is also believed that Katich was not impressed with the way they have operated in the last 12 months. Simon Katich, who had played for Australia and was also a coach, was roped in as assistant coach by head coach Tom Moody.
However, he has previously coached some big IPL franchises like Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the cash-rich league. He left the post at RCB ahead of the second leg in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), citing personal reasons.
Meanwhile, this was another incident where Australians have parted ways with the SRH franchise in the last 12 months. Earlier, it was former IPL-winning skipper David Warner, who was sacked unceremoniously from the leadership role after having a series of poor shows and eventually, being dropped from the playing XI as well. And, this made headlines too. Later, he returned to playing XI at the start of the second phase in the UAE before being dropped again after a few low scores.
Prior to the mega-auction, SRH didn’t retain Warner as well. Head coach Trevor Bayliss and assistant Brad Haddin have also parted ways with the franchise which won the trophy in 2016.
However, SRH retained Kane Williamson, Umran Malik and Abdul Samad ahead of the mega-auction. In the auction, they chose the likes of Aiden Markram, Glenn Phillips, Shimron Hetmyer, Romario Shepherd, Nicholas Pooran, Marco Jansen, T Natarajan, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Washington Sundar, and Kartik Tyagi, along with a few other players as well.
After the auction, SRH uploaded a video to their social accounts where Simon Katich has also explained the thought process behind their buy of Aiden Markram and Glenn Phillips as well.
SRH have roped in Simon Helmot to take over the Aussie’s role. Helmot, who recently coached Trinbago Knight Riders in the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) was previously part of the coaching staff of the Hyderabad side from 2012 to 2019.
SRH's squad for IPL 2022:
Kane Williamson (C), Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Washington Sundar, Nicholas Pooran, T Natarajan, Priyam Garg, Rahul Tripathi, Abhishek Sharma, Karik Tyagi, Shreyas Gopal, Jagadeesha Suchith, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Romario Shepherd, Abdul Samad, Umran Malik, Sean Abbott, R Samarth, Saurabh Dubey, Shashank Singh, Vishnu Vinod, Glenn Philips, Fazalhaq Farooqi