Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH)’s bowling attack is facing heavy criticism in the ongoing IPL 2026 as their struggles continued in another high-scoring encounter against Punjab Kings (PBSK) in Mullanpur on Saturday, April 12. Even after posting a huge score of 219/6, SRH failed to defend it against PBKS.
This high-scoring game once again highlighted the serious problems facing Sunrisers Hyderabad’s bowling attack as they have slipped to sixth place in the IPL 2026 points table, having lost three of their four games so far in the tournament.
SRH’s bowling comes under criticism after another run-fest in IPL 2026
It should have been a one-sided game for SRH, but Punjab Kings easily achieved the target of 220 runs with seven balls to spare. The young spin duo of Harsh Dubey (1/38) and Shivang Kumar (3/33) tried to control the damage, but the rest of the bowling lineup failed miserably.
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Jaydev Unadkat, Harshal Patel and Ishan Malinga could not take all the wickets and gave away a lot of runs. Nitish Kumar Reddy also bowled two overs and Abhishek also tried his hand, but no one got success. After witnessing another poor bowling performance, Kris Srikkanth criticized SRH’s weak attack.
Srikkanth says that Sunrisers Hyderabad needs 500 runs to compete with this bowling attack.
The former Indian chief selector pointed out that only two young spinners are showing some potential, while the rest of the attack is struggling badly in the ongoing IPL 2026. He said that SRH’s bowling attack lacked quality and consistency, adding that they needed to score 500 runs to win the game.
Kris Srikkanth said in a video on his YouTube channel, “There is no scope in his bowling. In front of his bowling, the opposition team will even achieve the target of 300. Their two young spinners Harsh Dubey and Shivang Kumar are good. But their bowling starts and ends from there. Ishan Malinga will collapse in Colombo with his bowling, yet SRH is playing them.”
The former World Cup winner further said, “Jaydev Unadkat and Harshal Patel’s time is over. SRH can win only if they score 500 with this bowling attack. You can’t do anything with this bowling. It is not even up to first-class level.”
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However, Srikkanth praised Punjab Kings captain Shreyas Iyer, who led his team from the front in this high-scoring match. Iyer played a match-winning inning of 69* off 33 balls to lead PBKS to a spectacular win over SRH in Mullanpur.
The former Indian captain said, “PBKS has a brilliant captain who shows a lot of responsibility. He just came in and won the game for them easily with his batting. Everyone is playing at a 200+ strike rate. If they all play at this strike rate then it is impossible to beat them.”
Interestingly, SRH stand-in captain Ishan Kishan admitted that his team lapses in execution. He said that the pitch was good for batting and anything around 219-240 could have been a strong total, but they did not live up to their expectations.
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