Pat Cummins joins SRH squad ahead of IPL 2024
Newly-appointed SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) skipper Pat Cummins has joined the franchise's camp on Tuesday, March 19, ahead of the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL). The ace pacer was roped in by the 2016 champions for an astonishing sum of ₹20.5 crore at the IPL 2024 mini-auction.
SRH are desperate for a major turnaround after finishing at the bottom of the table twice in the last three seasons. They last qualified for the playoffs in the 2020 edition. Even though Aiden Markram has guided SRH's sister franchise, the Sunrisers Eastern Cape to the SA20 title twice in a row, the team management made the radical decision to appoint Cummins as Hyderabad's new skipper.
The upcoming IPL marks Cummins' first major captaincy assignment when it comes to the shortest format. The speedster has led Australia to the biggest prizes in the game in his captaincy reign, but they have come in the Test and ODI formats in the form of the World Test Championship and the ODI World Cup, respectively.
He was in line for Australia's T20I captaincy following Aaron Finch's retirement, but the role has gone to Mitchell Marsh ahead of the T20 World Cup.
Cummins recently played his first T20I contest since the 2022 T20 World Cup, during the away series against New Zealand. Playing two matches in the three-contest affair, the pacer took two wickets, including a match-winning spell in Auckland.
Apart from the shift in captaincy, the Orange Army have also revamped their coaching staff, replacing Brian Lara with Daniel Vettori in the head coach role. Fast-bowling coach Dale Steyn also requested a break from his role, leading to James Franklin's appointment.
"India is like a second home" - Pat Cummins
India has become an increasingly familiar territory for overseas players since the inception of the IPL.
In 2023, Australian players spent almost half a year in India, playing the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, the IPL, multiple bilateral ODI and T20I series as well as 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," Cummins had said after SRH appointed him as the skipper
SRH will kickstart their IPL 2024 campaign against Cummins' former franchise, the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) on Saturday, March 23.