SRH management must rethink Travis Head’s future: Ashwin (Photo: IPL)
Ravichandran Ashwin strongly criticized Sunrisers Hyderabad’s reckless batting style following their 47-run defeat to Rajasthan Royals in the IPL 2026 Eliminator, even suggesting that the franchise management may need to make a tough decision regarding the future of Travis Head.Chasing a huge target of 244, SRH’s explosive batting line-up crumbled under pressure during a disastrous powerplay collapse.
Jofra Archer
And Nandre Burger tore into the top order as Hyderabad slumped to 57/4 inside the first five overs, effectively derailing the chase.Abhishek Sharma was dismissed for a duck in Archer’s opener, while Ishan Kishan’s aggressive debut of 33 off just 11 balls ended prematurely after what Ashwin described as an unnecessary catch.
Samaran Ravichandran fell cheaply, before Archer was dealt the biggest blow by the clean bowling of Travis Head for 17 off eight balls.Despite fighting knocks from Nitish Kumar Reddy (38 off 20) and Salil Arora (35 off 21), SRH never fully recovered from the early collapse and were eventually bowled out for 196 in 19.2 overs.
Reacting to the defeat on his YT channel ‘Ash Ki baat’, Ashwin criticized SRH’s shot selection and lack of game awareness in such a high-pressure knockout encounter.
“I think SRH could have won this match quite easily. When they had already scored around 32-34 runs in the first two overs and around 50 runs in the first three overs, Ishan Kishan’s batting was completely unnecessary. He threw his wicket away,” Ashwin said.“There was absolutely no sense in playing such a shot in such a big match. It was a very bad shot,” he added. Ashwin has been particularly critical of Travis Head’s season and hinted that the SRH should re-evaluate his role going forward.“Travis Head has not performed at all this season. The management definitely needs to think about Travis Head. He should have played more responsibly. There was no sense in going out by playing such a bad shot,” Ashwin added.The veteran spinner felt that SRH still had a realistic chance while Nitish Kumar Reddy was at the crease, but the constant loss of wickets made the massive chase impossible.“SRH were still in the game until the 14th over when Nitish Kumar Reddy was batting. But if you keep losing a lot of wickets, you will never be able to chase down such a huge total.“If SRH had shown more game awareness and played with calmer minds, they could have won this match comfortably. Honestly, it was a very poor batting performance from SRH,” he concluded.
