Sunrisers Hyderabad and Tom Moody part ways, Brian Lara frontrunner to be next head coach

Tom Moody‘s second stint as head coach at Sunrisers Hyderabad is over. Both both parties decided to part ways mutually. There is no confirmation yet on who could replace Moody, but ESPNcricinfo understands former West Indies captain Brian Lara, who was the strategic advisor and batting coach with Sunrisers in 2022 season, could be a frontrunner.

It is learned that both Moody and Sunrisers decided to not extend his contract. Moody was recently appointed as director of cricket at Desert Vipers, one of the six franchises in the ILT20, which is schedule to begin in the UAE in January 2023.

Moody had returned to Sunrisers in 2021 as director of cricket with fellow Australian Trevor Bayliss as the head coach. However, once Bayliss left after a dismal 2021 season – in which Sunrisers finished last with just three wins – the franchise appointed Moody as the head coach, the second time he held the post. In his highly successful first stint, between 2013 and 2019, Moody had helped Sunrisers five times to the play-offs including winning the IPL in 2016.

Moody’s second stint, though, was a forgettable experience as Sunrisers were the worst performing team in IPL (ranked on wins). In 28 matches, they had nine wins and 18 defeats with one tie. In 2022, Sunrisers finished eighth in the 10-team tournament, with six wins and eight defeats. Moody would have been clearly disappointed considering Sunrisers had assembled a well-balanced squad at the auction before which they had retained three players: their captain Kane Williamson along with the Indian pair of Umran Malik and Abdul Samad. In the first half of the season, Williamson got lucky at toss which played a big role in Sunrisers winning five matches in a row. However, they slid down the points table equally fast with five consecutive defeats. Williamson’s woeful batting form coupled with injuries to two key Indian players – T Natarajan and Washington Sundar – left Sunrisers frustrated.

Those two injuries came immediately after the shocking defeat against Gujarat Titans in the first half, a match which Moody described triggered “negative momentum” from which his team could never recover. “We were small margins away from being in a different position on the table and that could’ve easily been in the top-4,” Moody had said on May 22, after Sunrisers wrapped up their season with another defeat.

Source: ESPN Crickinfo

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