West Indies batting legend Brian Lara on Saturday was appointed as the new head coach of 2016 IPL champions Sunrisers Hyderabad. Lara, who was the strategic advisor and batting coach of the Sunrisers in the 2022 IPL season, succeeds Tom Moody for the top position in the upcoming seasons of the tournament.
"The cricketing legend Brian Lara will be our head coach for the upcoming #IPL seasons," announced the franchise through their official social media accounts.Speculations had been rife in the media since Friday that Moody would not be returning to be Sunrisers head coach in the coming IPL seasons and that he as well as the franchise had departed on mutual terms.
Moody was recently appointed as director of cricket for the Glazers Family-owned Desert Vipers, which is one of the six franchises in the upcoming ILT20 in the UAE, which is scheduled to begin from January 2023.
Moody's first stint as the head coach of the Sunrisers ran from 2013 to 2019. Under him, Hyderabad reached the playoffs five times and won the IPL for the first time in 2016. In 2020, Moody was replaced by fellow Australian Trevor Bayliss as head coach in 2020.
But in 2021, Moody returned to the franchise as director of cricket with Bayliss still serving as the head coach. Once Bayliss left the job after a dismal 2021 IPL season, in which the Sunrisers finished last in the points table with just three wins, Moody was again appointed as the head coach.
Moody's return as head coach for the Sunrisers in IPL 2022 couldn't change their fortunes. Sunrisers finished eighth in the 10-team tournament, with six victories and eight defeats. In the first half of the season, Sunrisers seemed to be making the playoffs on the back of winning five matches in a row.
However, in the second half of the tournament, they had to face five consecutive defeats, which cost them a shot at the playoffs. Captain Kane Williamson was not at his best with the bat while injuries to crucial Indian players like Washington Sundar and T Natarajan in key junctures of the tournament left disturbed their balance of the playing eleven.