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Sunrisers Hyderabad and Australia captain Pat Cummins recently spoke about the role of the team owners in the set-up, and how everyone in the side handled the transition of captaincy from him to Ishan Kishan in the early part of the season.
SRH confirmed their spot in the IPL 2026 playoffs with their win over the Chennai Super Kings in Chennai on Monday, but still have work to do if they are to finish in the top two and earn two shots at making the IPL final.
Ishan Kishan stood in for Pat Cummins
Pat Cummins had suffered a lower back lumbar stress injury in July last year. Since then, he had been barely able to play any cricket and was limited to just one match for the rest of 2025.
Cummins played the third Ashes Test against England last December, but sat out the other four Tests and all limited-overs matches. The injury had also prevented him from playing in the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka earlier this year.
When he arrived at the IPL, he was working his way back from the injury and was scheduled to play only the second half of the tournament. Cummins has only played 6 of SRH's 13 matches this year, with Ishan Kishan captaining in his place in the first half.
Kishan had been nominated captain because of his performances in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy last year. In that tournament, he led Jharkhand to the Trophy while being the highest run-getter in the tournament, paving his way for a comeback into the Indian team for the T20 World Cup.
I said Ishan would be great as captain- Pat Cummins
In an interview with NDTV on the sidelines of an event in New Delhi, Cummins spoke about the role of the owners in the team and how he had helped out Ishan Kishan when the wicketkeeper from Jharkhand took over SRH.
When asked about how the owners had reacted after SRH failed to make the playoffs last year, Cummins said that they had been 'great' and rued what SRH might have missed.
"The owners have been great. The first half of last year, I don't think we played anywhere near our potential. We won our last three or four games (last season), which showed that we were onto something with the style we wanted to play. Us at our best are right up there with any other team."
"We came into this season knowing that last season was as bad as we could play. A couple of new players, too, have bought into the aggressive style that brought us success," he said. When asked if he had anything to do with Kishan being named captain, Pat Cummins responded affirmatively.
"We had a few good options. He (Kishan) has had a great domestic season as captain. I got asked a question (on stand-in captaincy), and I said 'Oh, Ishan would be great, the boys love him'. He was awesome. I let him do his thing. I didn't get too involved, but I was there if he needed me. He knows how to captain well, so I stayed out of his way," Cummins added.
SRH under Pat Cummins and Ishan Kishan
The split captaincy does not seem to have greatly harmed the Sunrisers Hyderabad's campaign as they are now in the last four. The start of the season was a little rough, with Ishan Kishan leading the team to 3 defeats in the first four matches. But he turned things around by leading the team to three wins in a row.
When Pat Cummins arrived, he extended that winning streak by two, but then the team went on a pattern of losing and winning alternatively. In all, under Kishan, SRH won 4 matches out of 7, while under Cummins, they have won 4 matches out of 6 in IPL 2026.
Also Read: Pat Cummins makes bold statement on Vaibhav Sooryavanshi while targeting IPL 2026 trophy
