'Really Aggressive Start': SRH's World Cup Winning Captain Pat Cummins Wants Team to Hit the Ground Running

Pat Cummins had a dream run as Australia captain in 2023 that saw him overseeing the team’s first ever title win at the ICC World Test Championship before retaining Ashes in England. In the later half of 2023, Australia overcame in-form India in the final to lift the ICC ODI World Cup Trophy under Cummins’ captaincy who then became the costliest player in IPL auction history when Sunrisers Hyderabad bid Rs 20.50 crore for him before being overtaken by Mitchell Starc who was bought by Kolkata Knight Riders for Rs 24.75 crore.

However once the IPL 2024 season gets underway, Cummins will not just have to justify his price tag as a player but also ensure SRH leave behind the slump of the past three seasons that has seen them finish at the bottom half of the table.

Cummins is the fourth different player to lead SRH in the past four seasons and therefore will be under pressure to turn their fortunes around.

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Ahead of the season, the 30-year-old wishes to see his team hit the ground running. “A bit of planning to go and then just want to get off to a really good start. T20s are hard. Kolkata’s a good team, but I just want to see a really aggressive start to the season,” said Cummins in a video shared by SRH on X (formerly Twitter).

“I mean, the plans are, you know, I work really closely with the guys that I don’t know too well get to know them. Get to know what they need from me out in the middle. And then work with coaches and what they want to see out of me as well as a player,” he added.

Cummins feels that SRH, the 2016 IPL champions, have a good mix of experience and youth.

“I think we’ve got a great mix. We’ve got a couple more experienced guys like Bhuvi (Bhuvneshwar Kumar). Obviously, Aiden Markram was captain last year. But we’ve got some exciting young talent,” he said.

“I’m super excited to see guys like Abhishek (Sharma), Umran Malik, these guys I’ve only seen a little bit of but super excited. So, I think fans should be pretty pumped for the season ahead,” he added.