The SRH squad coming out of the IPL 2026 auction is a classic case of one decision shaping the entire auction strategy. That decision was the pursuit of Liam Livingstone.
To be clear, Livingstone is not a bad cricketer. In isolation, he is a high-impact T20 batter and a useful secondary bowling option. But in the context of SRH’s needs, timing, and squad balance, buying Liam Livingstone turned into a strategic error that prevented Sunrisers Hyderabad from properly addressing far more urgent gaps.
As a result, SRH head into IPL 2026 with a strong batting unit, but a bowling attack that looks incomplete and overly dependent on untested domestic talent. Their squad, in comparison to the other IPL 2026 squads, appear short.
The Timing Error That Hurt SRH In IPL 2026 Auction
At the IPL 2026 auction, when a player comes up is just as important as who the player is. SRH’s biggest mistake was not bidding for Livingstone early, when purses were healthier and teams were less conservative.
Instead, SRH waited for the accelerated round, keeping a mid-tier purse aside specifically for Livingstone. By doing so, they became hesitant to go hard for their real priorities — a powerplay pacer, a lead spinner, and domestic depth — because they wanted to preserve funds for Livingstone later.
This hesitation cost them heavily.
SRH ended up as losing bidders for Auqib Nabi, Ravi Bishnoi, Prashant Veer, Mangesh Yadav, and Kartik Sharma. Had they secured someone like Kartik Sharma earlier, it’s unlikely they would have chased Livingstone at all. But at that stage of the auction, SRH had bought very little and couldn’t afford to walk away empty-handed. That wait distorted the entire auction plan.
Liam Livingstone: A Misfit In The SRH Squad
From a squad-construction point of view, Liam Livingstone doesn’t actually solve SRH’s problems.
SRH’s top order is already set with Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Heinrich Klaasen. If Livingstone plays, he is almost certainly pushed to No.6, a role he has historically struggled in.
Since 2024, Livingstone’s returns at No.5 or lower make for grim reading, with an average of 20.10 and a strike rate of 123.31. In contrast, when batting in the top four, his numbers spike dramatically. In the ongoing ILT20 2025–26, he has struck at 174.22 with two fifties, all at No.4.
SRH simply don’t have that slot available without pushing Nitish Reddy out of position, something that already hurt them last season. Instead of fixing a problem, Livingstone introduces more role confusion.
What SRH Missed Out On
By funnelling so much of their auction capital and planning into Livingstone, SRH failed to properly address their bowling needs.
They released Rahul Chahar and Adam Zampa, yet didn’t secure a finished wrist spinner. Zeeshan Ansari remains inexperienced, while players like Krains Fuletra are long-term projects rather than immediate IPL solutions. This leaves SRH with arguably the weakest spin attack among all ten teams.
The pace department isn’t much stronger. While Jaydev Unadkat and Harshal Patel offer experience, both can be expensive at the death. Pat Cummins doesn’t bring elite T20 bowling returns and is coming off fitness concerns. The rest of SRH’s pace stocks are largely uncapped Indian bowlers, high potential, but extremely high risk.
SRH didn’t even seriously attempt proven overseas options like Matt Henry or Mustafizur Rahman, which makes the Livingstone spend even harder to justify.
SRH Purse Left Unused, Unfilled Gaps
One of the most damning aspects of SRH’s IPL 2026 auction was leaving ₹5.45 crore unused, despite having obvious gaps.
Daniel Vettori later explained that SRH expected some uncapped players to go for more, which is why they held money back. Even so, leaving that much unused when the squad clearly lacked a powerplay bowler, a lead spinner, and a reliable finisher points to misjudgement, not misfortune.
They even went hard for Josh Inglis, pushing the bid up to ₹8.4 crore despite knowing his limited availability, another sign of reactive, rather than proactive, auction planning.
The SRH squad for IPL 2026 is not a bad one, but it is an unbalanced one.
They are a formidable batting side and will win games when that unit fires collectively. However, their bowling attack lacks reliability, experience, and proven IPL quality. Too much now depends on one or two domestic wildcard picks delivering breakout seasons.
In trying to be clever with Liam Livingstone at the IPL 2026 auction, SRH ended up undermining their own priorities. One misjudged decision snowballed into several missed opportunities, and that could ultimately be the difference between a playoff push and another frustrating season.
