Pat Cummins, the newly named captain of SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH), attended the franchise’s training on Tuesday, March 19, ahead of the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL). The 2016 winners paid an astounding ₹20.5 crore for the ace bowler at the IPL 2024 mini-auction.
Sunrisers Hyderabad crave a significant transformation after languishing at the league’s lowest rung twice during the previous three campaigns. Their most recent playoff appearance transpired during the 2020 edition. Despite Aiden Markram’s leadership guiding the Sunrisers Eastern Cape, SRH’s sister franchise, to consecutive SA20 triumphs, the management undertook a radical move. They appointed Cummins as Hyderabad’s new captain.
The 2018 IPL is Cummins’ first big leadership responsibility in the shortest format. The speedster has led Australia to the game’s biggest rewards during his leadership reign, but they have come in the Test and ODI forms, namely the World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup.
Following Aaron Finch’s retirement, he was expected to be Australia’s T20I captain, but Mitchell Marsh has taken over ahead of the T20 World Cup.
Pat Cummins just played his first T20I match since the 2022 T20 World Cup, in an away series against New Zealand. In two of the three contests, the pacer got two wickets, including a match-winning performance in Auckland.
Aside from the captaincy change, the Orange Army has also updated its coaching staff, with Daniel Vettori replacing Brian Lara as head coach. Dale Steyn, the fast bowling coach, also requested a leave of absence, which resulted in James Franklin’s hiring.
“India is like a second home” – Pat Cummins
Since the IPL’s beginning, India has become a more familiar destination for international players.
In 2023, Australian players spent over half a year in India, competing in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the IPL, various bilateral ODI and T20I series, and the ODI World Cup.
“India is like a second home. We spend so much time here. IPL, you’ve got your home teams. So you actually feel like you’ve got plenty of fans. Or, you know, at least cricket fans that have, you know, supported you or, you know, lots of people come up to me and say, I’m from Kolkata or I go for KKR. So it’s nice feeling like not everyone’s against you.”
Pat Cummins
SRH will begin their IPL 2024 campaign on Saturday, March 23, against Pat Cummins previous side, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
