SRH have an inexperienced spin attack for IPL 2026.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have been talked about for having a powerful batting lineup, laced with big-hitters like Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, and Heinrich Klaasen. That remains their core strength for IPL 2026 as well. Their bowling attack, in general, has a lot of issues ahead of a fresh season.
Pat Cummins’ fitness and T20 credentials make him vulnerable. Eshan Malinga is another injured pacer, whereas Jaydev Unadkat can be expensive on flat decks. However, SRH have quietly built a decent spin attack via replacement and auction, even if no one has noticed yet.
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Sunrisers Hyderabad have an all-Indian spin unit for this season. Their main spinners are Zeeshan Ansari, Harsh Dubey, Krains Fuletra, and Shivang Kumar. All of them are uncapped; the last two have yet to make IPL debuts.
Read Krains Fuletra’s full profile
While their inexperience makes them susceptible to high-pressure games, SRH also get a chance to use their unknown expertise against quality batters. A lot of mystery spinners have found success in their initial years. Moreover, the Orange Army have picked all the quality spinners who bring unique skills and make the attack colourful.
They have all varieties of spinners: Zeeshan offers leg-spin, Harsh bowls left-arm spin, whereas Fuletra and Shivang are chinaman bowlers. They also have Travis Head as an off-spinner, while Abhishek Sharma, Liam Livingstone, and Kamindu Mendis are also reasonably good as a spinner. The inexperience part remains true, but SRH were smart enough to go for Indian options since overseas slots will mostly be taken by batters and the captain himself.
Hence, even if they bought foreign spinners, the Hyderabad-based franchise couldn’t have drafted them into the XI. Eventually, they needed local options in this department. SRH did well to buy a domestic giant and other bowlers with high wicket-taking value and mystery factor.
Harsh Dubey will be the main finger spinner in SRH XI for IPL 2026. He offers batting value as well. Dubey played three games last season, snaring five wickets at 19.60 runs apiece.
He has been in fine form in domestic cricket and showed encouraging defensive skills in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where the all-rounder grabbed eight wickets at an average of 20.62 and conceded only 6.34 runs per over. His main task will be to control quality from one end, something he’s mastered with long spells in red-ball cricket.
As a batter, Dubey hasn’t had enough chances so far, but brings more than useful batting abilities in the lower order. SRH already have tremendous batting depth thanks to Pat Cummins and Harshal Patel, and Dubey’s inclusion will give their batters more freedom to go hard on every ball. He will likely bat ahead of Harshal in the XI.
Meanwhile, Zeeshan Ansari will be the attacking bowler in the lineup, whose job will be to bring wickets in the middle overs. He showed glimpses of his superior wicket-taking abilities last season, taking six wickets at an average of 55.50 in 10 outings. Zeeshan showed his beast mode in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, where he was the joint second-leading wicket-taker with 21 wickets at an average of 16.52 in eight outings.
Additionally, he had two four-wicket hauls in the competition. So, SRH will look to utilise his form and give him a consistent run. The only issue can be playing on flat decks in IPL, where Zeeshan can be expensive.
However, his role will be to bowl attacking lengths to bring consistent wickets, even if that requires leaking a few boundaries. His skill sets are good enough to fetch him scalps. Once his role is completed, a batter will replace him as an impact player.
Krains Fuletra and Shivang Kumar will mostly be backups. Their chances will come if Zeeshan remains underwhelming or becomes unavailable for any reason. Both are left-arm wrist-spinners, a variety that’s still rare in world cricket.
Shivang is also a handy lower-order batter who can hit the ball long. He has a T20 strike rate of 143.90 and a List A strike rate of 88.15. So, that’s another advantage for SRH.
Fuletra and Shivang are still raw, but they bring high ceiling as spinners. There’s long-term investment value in both players, and SRH will develop them into match-winners. Getting them at this stage of their careers benefits both parties: franchises get solid options at lower prices, whereas players get to work with some of the sharpest minds at a grand stage.
Their chances might come in patches in IPL 2026. A lot will depend on how they bowl in the nets. One of them might get to debut at some stage of the tournament.
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