In the nine seasons Sunrisers Hyderabad have been in the Indian Premier League - since they joined late in 2013 - they have lost six of their opening fixtures.
But that fact is likely to weigh less heavily on them as against the fact that they were way below par last season, when they finished last with just three wins and 11 losses.
Kane Williamson's elbow injury and his non-availability, David Warner's poor form and their formidable bowling attack blunted by the form issues of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and T Natarajan's surgery may all have contributed to a wretched 2021 season. But like all teams, they too have refurbished their squad with some new personnel, some old and retained most of the young turks from the previous season.
With the new season unfolding for them in Pune on Tuesday against bête noire Rajasthan Royals - who can forget Shane Warne's 22-run final over assault on Andrew Symonds in the inaugural edition, albeit against Deccan Chargers - Sunrisers Hyderabad hope to banish the demons of last season and their auction strategy works.
They have three of the best - Brian Lara, Dale Steyn and Muttiah Muralitharan - in the backroom but a lot will depend on how Williamson shapes this team, which so typical of Sunrisers, lacks big names. The skipper is dogged by a troublesome elbow and with Sunrisers making it clear that he'll open with Abhishek Sharma, Nicholas Pooran and Rahul Tripathi will have a huge role to play in the middle.
Abhishek, Abdul Samad and Priyam Garg were part of the squad and Sunrisers hope their faith in these young guns will be vindicated now that they will have more responsibility with the exit of Warner and Manish Pandey. R Samarth and Shashank Singh are rated highly too but the one player Sunrisers would want fit and firing is Washington Sundar.
