IPL: Tom Moody has been replaced as Sunrisers Hyderabad‘s head coach for the 2023 Indian Premier League season by Brian Lara. Lara served as a batting instructor and strategic counsel to the SRH team management throughout the previous campaign. Additionally, this will be his first stint as a T20 team’s head coach.
Reports suggest that Sunrisers and Moody mutually decided to go their separate ways. One of the six ILT20 franchises, the Desert Vipers, has named Moody as director of cricket. In the meantime, ILT20 is scheduled to start in the UAE in January 2023.
In 2021, Moody returned to the Sunrisers as their director of cricket. He joined fellow Australian Trevor Bayliss, who was appointed as the head coach for the IPL franchise. After Bayliss left the team following a failed 2021 campaign, Moody was named head coach. The Sunrisers finished last in IPL 2021 with just three victories.
He had previously held the position once before. Between 2013 and 2019, Moody had a very successful first tenure and assisted the Sunrisers five times in making the playoffs. Additionally, during his tenure, the franchise won the IPL in 2016.
READ MORE: India vs Hong Kong: Journey That Makes Hong Kong’s Performance Against India Special
Brian Lara Takes Over as Sunrisers Hyderabad’s Head Coach for Tom Moody
Moody‘s second tenure as head coach, meanwhile, was less fruitful than his first. With six victories and eight losses in the 10-team tournament in 2022, the Sunrisers came in eighth place.
The Sunrisers have the worst record of any IPL team in terms of victories during the previous two seasons. In the 28 games they played in during that time, they had nine wins, 18 losses, and one tie.​
Given that the Sunrisers put together a balanced squad at the auction, Moody would have been dissatisfied. They had retained three players before that as well. Prior to the IPL 2022 auction, SRH kept its skipper Kane Williamson and the Indian duo of Umran Malik and Abdul Samad.
READ MORE: IPL: Four Well-Known Players Who Could Be Released in IPL 2023 Auctions
Kane Williamson was fortunate with the toss during the first half of the season. This ultimately contributed significantly to the Sunrisers winning five straight games. With five straight losses, they fell just as quickly in the standings.
Williamson’s dismal batting performance and the injuries to two important Indian players didn’t help the franchise either. Sunrisers were utterly irate as a result of T Natarajan and Washington Sundar’s absences.
Ultimately, Tom Moody would be keen to forget his disastrous second stint in the franchise and move forward to a new league. Brian Lara, meanwhile, is all set to kickoff his career as a head coach. It will be intriguing to see how he fares in the IPL for SRH.
