In a bizarre turn of events, Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) player Sanvir Singh missed out on making his Indian Premier League (IPL) debut as the franchise submitted the wrong team sheet for its match against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium in Hyderabad on Saturday.
Their blunder came to the fore when commentator Scott Styris held the team's sheet titled 'Batting First' in his hand during the live stream of the match on Jio Cinema. He pointed out what was a gaffe by the Orange Army as Sanvir's name was struck out and replaced with a pacer in T Natarajan.
“I think they’ve crossed out the wrong sheet. I think he (Sanvir) was supposed to play,” Styris says to commentators Zaheer Khan and Abhinav Mukund in a video which has now gone viral on social media.
The ex-CSK and New Zealand star inferred that the team might have submitted a playing 11 which was actually meant for a 'bowl first' scenario. In contrast, the home team had won the toss and elected to bat first in the afternoon match. What made SRH's error stand out was that their captain Aiden Markram had even announced that Sanvir would make his debut but because of the error they were left a batter short on Saturday.
Ultimately, SRH had to opt in for Vivrant Sharma as the Impact Player in the second innings in place of Anmolpreet Singh. Defending a 182-run target for LSG, Sharma wasn't used with the ball and SRH ended up on the losing side and Lucknow won the match by 7 wickets and 4 balls remaining.
After the double-header on Saturday (May 13), SRH are at the ninth place on the points table with 8 points from 11 matches. LSG, meanwhile, are at the fourth place with 13 points from 12 games.