IPL 2023 Auction: Sunrisers Hyderabad will go after Mayank Agarwal, feels Irfan Pathan

Former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan is of the opinion that Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) will go for opener Mayank Agarwal in the upcoming IPL 2023 auction to replace former skipper Kane Williamson in the squad.

Williamson was retained by SRH for a mind-boggling INR 14 crore but he had a disastrous IPL 2022 as he only scored 216 runs across 13 matches with a strike rate of 94. He was released from the franchise ahead of the mini-auction.

IPL 2023 Auction: All you need to know

Hyderabad will now be looking to add a top-order batter and are also in search of their next captain. Irfan feels Mayank can be the guy for SRH.

“SRH will go after Mayank Agarwal because they need a kind of aggressive opener as well. They don’t have Kane Williamson right now who led them for many years as an experienced player and who used to open the innings as well. Mayank Agarwal is the kind of guy who has led a side, who plays quite freely as well, very fearless, very selfless. They might be thinking of him going forward as a leader as well,” Pathan said on Star Sports show Game Plan.

Mayank was captain of Punjab Kings (PBKS) in IPL 2022 but was also released from the franchise after a poor outing with bat, scoring 196 runs in 13 matches. Shikhar Dhawan will captain PBKS in the upcoming season.

SRH will enter the IPL auction with the highest purse of Rs 42.25 crore having released 12 players like Williamson, Nicholas Pooran, Jagadeesha Suchith, Priyam Garg, Ravikumar Samarth, Romario Shepherd, Saurabh Dubey, Sean Abbott, Shashank Singh, Shreyas Gopal, Sushant Mishra and Vishnu Vinod.

The 2023 edition of the IPL auction will be held in Kochi on Friday, 23 December.

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