Ranji Trophy record-breaker Harsh Dubey replaces R Smaran at SRH
Dubey joins SRH at a time when their season is almost over, with only a mathematical chance of going through to the playoffs
ESPNcricinfo staff
05-May-2025 • 3 hrs ago
Harsh Dubey picked up 69 wickets in the last Ranji Trophy season for Vidarbha • PTI
R Smaran, the 22-year-old batter from Karnataka who had replaced Adam Zampa in the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) squad, has been ruled out of the remainder of IPL 2025 after picking up an injury and has been replaced by Harsh Dubey.
Dubey, also 22, is a left-arm spin-bowling allrounder who plays for Vidarbha in the domestic circuit, broke the record for the most wickets in a Ranji Trophy season ever when he picked up 69 wickets in Vidarbha's run to the 2024-25 title. That took him one past Ashutosh Aman's record of 68 wickets in the 2018-19 season. He joins SRH for INR 30 lakh, his base price at the last IPL auction.
Even as he has made waves in the Ranji Trophy, Dubey only has moderate returns in the white-ball formats: 21 wickets from 20 bowling innings at an average of 34.66 in List A cricket and nine wickets from 16 bowling innings with an economy rate of 6.78 in T20s. His stocks have risen since the Ranji Trophy, though.
He comes into the IPL with SRH's IPL 2025 campaign all but over after they had made the final in IPL 2024. SRH have won just three of their ten games so far and are in ninth place on the points table. Even if they win their remaining four games, they can only get to 14 points, which will leave them hoping a couple of the top-performing teams get on a losing streak. But, even then, their current net run-rate of -1.192 is the poorest of the ten teams, including the already-eliminated Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR).
SRH's next game is at home in Hyderabad against Delhi Capitals (DC) on Monday evening.