The Orange Army will enter auction day with a purse of INR 25.5 Crore.
As if being named in the SRH retained players 2026 list was not enough! Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) batter Smaran Ravichandran has developed a good habit of letting his bat do the talking. The only reason he makes headlines is because of his scores, and the left-handed batter has once again made headlines in the Ranji Trophy fixture between Karnataka and Chandigarh in Hubli.
After skipper Mayank Agarwal opted to bat first, the hosts did not have the best of starts. They lost a couple of quick wickets, after which Karun Nair steered the innings towards security with a composed 95. That being said, the elephant in the room was Smaran Ravichandran. The 22-year-old went on to score his second double-ton in First-class cricket.
Ravichandran came out to bat at No.5, and stood tall despite wickets falling all around him. He stitched a 119-run stand with Karun Nair before the Delhi Capitals (DC) batter was dismissed without a century. Even after his dismissal, Smaran Ravichandran continued to stand tall from one end to ensure Karnataka got close to the 500-run mark.
His innings comprised 15 boundaries and a solitary six till the time he got to the double-century mark. This tells us that the youngster scored just 66 out of the 200 runs in boundaries, which speaks volumes about his ability to rotate the strike at will.
At the time of publishing this piece, Karnataka were 493/7, with Smaran Ravichandran and Shikhar Shetty batting on 204* and 33* respectively.
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The left-handed batter from Karnataka was brought in by the 2016 IPL champions in IPL 2025 as a replacement for the injured Adam Zampa. Smaran Ravichandran was acquired for a base price of INR 30 Lakh, and did not get to feature in a single match for the Orange Army last season. However, ahead of IPL 2026, he might just have made a case for himself.
Having said that, the only was Smaran Ravichandran can get to start for the franchise would be via the middle-order. The SRH retained players 2026 list comprises of Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head and Ishan Kishan, who would be sure features for the top-three positions. However, the 22-year-old has shown enough ability with the bat to be tested in the middle-order, as a backup to someone like Aniket Verma.
In 12 First-class matches so far, Smaran has scored 952 runs already, with an average of a staggering 63.46. To add to that, he possesses three fifties, three hundreds and two double hundreds, which is a stunning achievement in just 12 games in domestic cricket. His List A career also speaks volumes about his striking ability with the bat.
Additionally, in T20s, the young left-handed batter is a force to reckon with. He has scored 170 runs in six innings at a strike-rate of a 170. Along with a fifty in the format, Smaran Ravichandran has clearly shown the ability to take the bowlers to the cleaners at will, a quality that resonates with the nature of cricket that the Sunrisers Hyderabad are willing to play.
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