Muttiah Muralitharan: “We really wanted him” in reference to Sunrisers’ acquisition of Travis Head

Muttiah Muralitharan, the spin bowling coach for Sunrisers Hyderabad and a former great spinner for Sri Lanka, said that the team “really wanted” Travis Head for the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2024.

Among the names with a high price tag was Head, who turned up outstanding performances in the World Test Championship and ODI World Cup finals earlier this year. There was a heated bidding war between the Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Chennai Super Kings. But Head paid a premium of 6.8 crore to join the Orange family.

During the IPL 2024 player auction, Muralitharan discussed the purchase on JioCinema’s “We really wanted him (Travis Head) because we needed an opening left-handed batter. Adding to that he can bowl spin as well. I never thought we would get him for that price because of his performance being tremendous in the last couple of years in T20Is and ODIs for Australia.”

“So, we were waiting for this, and we thought that we would have a tough fight with a lot of teams but in the end, CSK came and fought with us. But we knew they don’t need a frontline player as they have Devon Conway, so they will stop somewhere,” Muralitharan added.

Travis has been playing exceptionally well for the Australian team, hitting hundreds against India in the World Test Championship final in the ICC Cricket World Cup final. He has amassed 554 runs at an average of 29.15 and a strike rate of over 146 in 23 Twenty20 Internationals, including one fifty. He has amassed 2,494 runs at an average of 27.71 and a strike rate of over 134 in 107 T20 matches, including one century and ten fifties.

In addition, the left-handed hitter was selected as November 2023’s ICC Men’s Player of the Month. Head won the award against fierce opposition from India seamer Mohammed Shami and partner Glenn Maxwell.