SunRisers Hyderabad on Monday appointed Australia’s World Cup-winning skipper Pat Cummins as their new captain for the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) season, replacing Aiden Markram who had led the team in the 2023 season.
This will be the Australian’s first stint as captain in the IPL. Cummins had been part of the KKR squad from 2020 to 2022.
Cummins had withdrawn from IPL 2023 to focus on international cricket but entered the auction for the 2024 season, where he became the first player in IPL history to get a bid of INR 20 crore (USD 2.4 million approximately). SRH's record bid of INR 20.50 crore (USD 2.47 million approximately) for Cummins was shortly broken by Kolkata Knight Riders, who bid INR 24.75 crore (USD 2.98 million approximately) for Mitchell Starc.
Cummins will be SRH's third captain in three seasons. Kane Williamson led them to an eighth-place finish in 2022 before he was released ahead of the 2023 season, in which SRH finished last under Markram's captaincy with only four wins in 14 league games.
Markram scored only 248 runs at a strike rate of 129 in IPL 2023, and he remains in the SRH squad for the upcoming season. In the SA20, Cricket South Africa's T20 league, Markram had led the Sunrisers Eastern Cape franchise to back-to-back titles in 2022 and 2023.
In addition to the latest captaincy change, SRH had also named a new head coach ahead of the 2024 IPL season, with former New Zealand left-arm spinner and captain Daniel Vettori taking over from Brian Lara, who had in turn replaced Tom Moody as coach for IPL 2023.
SRH also replaced Dale Steyn with former New Zealand allrounder James Franklin as their bowling coach.
SRH squad for IPL 2024 season
Abdul Samad, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram (c), Marco Jansen, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh, Heinrich Klaasen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, T. Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Markande, Upendra Singh Yadav, Umran Malik, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Travis Head, Wanindu Hasaranga, Pat Cummins, Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan.
SRH begin their IPL 2024 campaign against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens on March 23, and then play Mumbai Indians in Hyderabad on March 27.
