"Not For Bowling Or Batting But For His Captaincy.."- Aakash Chopra Explains Real Reason Why SRH Bought Pat Cummins

We witnessed yet another enthralling player Auction for IPL 2024 yesterday at the Coca-Cola Arena in Dubai. To be specific, Australian players were in high demand among all the franchises and one player who has made plenty of news is Australia’s World Cup 2023 winning captain Pat Cummins.

The 30-year-old attracted interest from franchises like Delhi Capitals, Royal Challengers Bangalore, and Kolkata Knight Riders before 2016 Champions Sunrisers Hyderabad bagged him for a whopping sum of INR 20.50 Crores.

It made him the most expensive entity ever in an IPL auction (momentarily) before his teammate Mitchell Starc entered the fray, who was acquired by KKR for another record sum of INR 24.75 Crores.

It was a day to remember for the Aussie duo who are currently preparing for a Boxing Day (2nd Test) against Pakistan at the MCG.

While Starc’s inclusion into the KKR team was made for him to lead the 2-time champions’ bowling attack, there is a little bit of confusion as to what exactly Pat Cummins’ role will be in the SRH side.

Former Indian cricketer and Expert analyst Aakash Chopra shared his two cents on how Pat Cummins will fit into the South Indian outfit for IPL 2024, which is slated to start from March onwards.

Chopra while breaking down all that happened during the Auction, stated that Pat Cummins has been trusted by the SRH management not for his bowling or batting skills but for his efficiency as a Skipper.

And for a fact, there are no second thoughts about Cummins being an exceptional captain. Under his leadership, the Australian team started 2023 with a 2-1 Border-Gavaskar trophy (4-match Test series) loss in India.

It was followed by a 209-run win over the same opponents during the World Test Championship final in June before retaining the Ashes in July. 3 months later, the Baggy Greens lifted their 6th ICC CWC trophy at the Narendra Modi stadium with Pat Cummins mainly contributing as a master tactician.

He took just 5 wickets and also made contributions with the Bat whenever it was required. And that is what exactly he is going to bring to the table, thinks Aakash Chopra.

Aakash Chopra Opines On SRH Paying A Heavy Price For Pat Cummins

“The Pat Cummins bid for 20.50 crore rupees – they have neither bought a bowler nor a batter, but a captain. In my opinion, Hyderabad needed a captain. The team was good earlier, it is good now as well. It is a team worthy of qualifying and was earlier as well.”

“Now (Daniel) Vettori has come. He has an Australian connection with Pat Cummins. So they have suddenly got him in the form of a captain, or else 20.50 crore rupees makes no sense, not for somebody whose IPL record is extremely ordinary. Class player but T20 numbers are 50-50”

Meanwhile, if we talk about the bowling figures of Pat Cummins then he has collected a total of 45 wickets in 42 IPL games since making his debut in 2014 with an economy rate of 8.54. With his inclusion into Sunrisers Hyderabad, Aiden Markram is most likely to be replaced as the Captain.

SRH Full Squad after Auction: 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.