Huge blow for SRH with captain Warner gone. He may not be a good person at heart, but he is an attacking batsmen who can be relied on to take the attack to the opposition in the Powerplay, laying out a strong foundation and setting it up for our bowlers, who have been great in the last few seasons.
I think Hales is a very good pick, Guppy would be another good one but SRH needed an aggressive opener alongside Dhawan. Hales is a very good T20 player as an opener and looks like he can bat well with Dhawan, who takes time to build his innings and goes bang after settling in.
Always the option of Saha opening available, but I feel Hales will fail down the order if he bats outside of #1-3. Hales could bat 3 and Saha open. Its going to be interesting to see what SRH will do with Saha.
My revised lineup now:
Dhawan
Hales/Saha
Williamson/Hales/Saha
Pandey
Shakib
Yusuf Pathan/Hooda
Saha/Hooda
Bhuvi
Rashid
Sandeep
Kaul
A really confused lineup
, but just shows that Saha can bat anywhere if needed. If it were up to me, I'd like Saha to open and have him try to get as many runs as he can. If he fails early on, there is Hales and Williamson who can finish the Powerplay and keep Dhawan company in the first ten overs. Then Manish Pandey and Shakib take it through to the death overs and there is either Yusuf Pathan or Hooda who is capable of hitting the ball into the night sky.
Of course, there's the bowling attack to contend with. Bhuvi and Sandeep making breakthroughs with the new ball with Rashid and Shakib keeping it tight in the middle overs.
Thoughts,
@Yash. and any SRH fans?