Mumbai Indians is not the only team that will see a new skipper in the IPL 2024. After Hardik Pandya replaced Rohit Sharma as the new MI skipper, now SunRisers Hyderabad will be playing under a new captain too. Australia’s World Cup-winning skipper Pat Cummins was on Monday named captain of Sunrisers Hyderabad for the upcoming Indian Premier League, becoming the fourth player to be handed the responsibility in the last three years.
The 30-year-old pacer was bought by SRH for a whopping Rs 20.50 crore in the IPL auctions in December last year, making him the second-costliest player in the event’s history. He replaced South African Aiden Markram, who led SRH in the 2023 season.
Talking about the change in captaincy, Irfan Pathan, a member of India’s T20 World Cup-winning team in 2007, raised some important questions.
“When you talk about leadership, you wouldn’t want to think beyond Cummins ideally. Australia just won the World Cup under him; he’s performed really well in the last one and a half years. But the problem is that Cummins will look nice overall. However, when it comes to T20 leadership, there’s nothing. His performance isn’t the greatest in T20 cricket and his IPL numbers aren’t decent either,” Irfan Pathan said on Star Sports.
“So there will be a challenge. What is SRH thinking? They’ve made a big move here. If Cummins is made captain, what about Markram? You gave him captaincy just for one year, so wouldn’t you want to back him? That is a big question.”
Pathan also felt that the inclusion of Pat Cummins means they have to re-think their playing XI. “If they both play, [Wanindu] Hasaranga will struggle to make his place in the team. Even Marco Jansen could sit out because there are too many overseas players. So there are a lot of issues. SRH need to figure out what they have to do because even Klaasen is an overseas player. And I want personally that Hasaranga becomes part of that Playing XI. Forget leadership, how will Cummins perform as a bowler? That remains to be seen,” Pathan said.
