Veteran Trinidadian Brian Lara has been named the new head coach of 2016 IPL champion Sunrisers Hyderabad
KEY HIGHLIGHTS
- Brain Lara has been named the new head coach of Sunrisers Hyderabad
- Lara will replace Tom Moody in the role from IPL 2024 onwards
- Lara will be SRH’s third coach in three years is Brian Lara after Trevor Bayliss (2022-21) and Moody (2023-19, 2022)
Tom Moody has been replaced as Sunrisers Hyderabad’s head coach for the 2024 IPL season by Brian Lara. Brian Lara served as a strategic advisor and batting coach for the SRH club last season, and this will be his first role as the T20 team’s head coach.
Sunrisers and Moody mutually decided to separate ways. Desert Vipers, one of the six franchises in the ILT20, which is set to begin in the UAE in January 2024, recently appointed Moody as director of cricket.
In 2021, Moody returned to Sunrisers as director of cricket and Trevor Bayliss, an Australian, served as head coach. The Sunrisers appointed Moody as their new head coach, the second time he has held the position after Bayliss left following a disastrous 2021 season in which they came last with only three wins. Between 2013 and 2019, Moody had a very productive first tenure. He had helped Sunrisers make the playoffs five times and win the IPL in 2016.
The Sunrisers finished eighth in the 10-team competition in 2022 under Moody’s second tenure as head coach, with six victories and eight losses. In terms of wins across 28 matches, Sunrisers had the worst record in the last two seasons of the IPL: nine wins, 18 losses, and one tie.
Moody would have been disappointed considering that Sunrisers formed a well-balanced team at the auction and had previously retained three players: their captain Kane Williamson and the Indian duo of Umran Malik and Abdul Samad.
Williamson’s good fortune at the toss in the first half of the season helped Sunrisers win five straight games. With five straight losses, they fell just as quickly in the standings. Sunrisers were dismayed by Williamson’s poor batting performance as well as the injuries to two important Indian players, T Natarajan and Washington Sundar.
These two injuries occurred right after a loss to the Gujarat Titans, which, according to Moody, set off “negative momentum” from which his squad was never able to recover. On May 22, after Sunrisers suffered yet another loss, Moody commented, “We were small margins away from being in a different position on the table and that could’ve easily been in the top 4.”
