The fact that SRH didn’t retain the great Afghanistan leg spinner Rashid Khan has been in the news since yesterday, but it was because of the salary issues and not because the franchise didn’t want to retain Rashid. However, once it was confirmed that Rashid was not agreeing to be retained as the second choice player, SRH didn’t opt for any other overseas player apart from Kane Williamson.
SRH could have opted for Jason Holder as he would have given them the balance both with bat and ball. In the last two seasons of the IPL, Holder has shown that he is not just good with the new ball, he has improved his death bowling as well. He is more of a complete bowler now, particularly on surfaces that are a bit abrasive, where he can use his cutters towards the end of the innings.
Another aspect of Holder’s gameplay is his batting, which is again multi-dimensional as his bowling. Generally, he is someone who is seen as a specialist bowler, but his skillset is very close to that of a genuine all-rounder. Holder can bat in the middle order as he is a good six-hitter against spin, but he can finish the innings batting lower down the order as well if the team requires.
It is hard to find genuine allrounders in the mega auction because their price shoots up very high and even if teams eventually manage to buy them, most of the genuine allrounders are particularly good in one phase of the game and not so good in the other phases. That’s not the case with Holder, as he has evolved as a T20 player very, very well in the last couple of years.
SRH might have to bid for Jason Holder in the mega auction again
With Holder not being retained, SRH will either have to go for him again in the mega auction or they will have to go for the likes of Ben Stokes and Dwayne Bravo, both of whom are expected to be very expensive in the auction if they are not already picked by the new franchises in the players’ draft.
Most of the other IPL teams have generally gone with an all-rounder as one of their retained players. SRH is probably the only one that has retained two specialist batsmen in Kane Williamson and Abdul Samad and a specialist bowler in Umran Malik.
They will go into the mega auction with a fairly high amount of money in the purse, but they could have solved a lot of their team-building issues before the auction itself, by retaining Jason Holder.
