Harsh Dubey is R Smaran’s replacement at SRH with the latter being ruled out with a injury in the nets during practice.
Ranji Trophy record-breaker Harsh Dubey replaces R Smaran at SRH.
After suffering an injury, 22-year-old Karnataka batter R Smaran, who had taken Adam Zampa’s place in the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) side, would miss the rest of the 2025 Indian Premier League. Harsh Dubey will take his place.
The record for the most wickets in a Ranji Trophy season was broken by Dubey, a 22-year-old left-arm spin bowling all-rounder who plays for Vidarbha in the local circuit. He took 69 wickets during Vidarbha’s run to the 2024–25 championship. With that, he surpassed Ashutosh Aman’s 2018–19 record of 68 wickets. For INR 30 lakh, his base price at the most recent IPL auction, he joins SRH.
Dubey has only had mediocre results in the white-ball forms, despite his success in the Ranji Trophy: nine wickets from 16 bowling innings with an economy rate of 6.78 in T20 cricket and 21 wickets from 20 bowling innings at an average of 34.66 in List A cricket. However, since the Ranji Trophy, his stock has increased.
He enters the IPL with SRH’s 2025 campaign virtually finished, having advanced to the IPL 2024 final. SRH is currently in ninth place in the standings after winning just three of its ten games thus far.
They can only reach 14 points even if they win their final four games, so they will need to hope that a few of the top-performing teams go on a losing streak. Even yet, they have the lowest net run-rate of the 10 clubs, including the already-defeated Rajasthan Royals (RR) and Chennai Super Kings (CSK), with -1.192.
On Monday night, SRH will play the Delhi Capitals (DC) at home in Hyderabad.