How Cummins turned SRH from laggards to title contenders

IN 2023 Sunrisers Hyderabad won only four games in the entirety of the campaign but this season, they have already won five from eight games and are contenders not only to end up in the top four but if things fall in place, their second trophy after 2016 under Pat Cummins.

Going into the season there was an element of not knowing what to expect from the side and Skipper Cummins- the player who was brought for a heavy price tag of 20.50 crores. Neither had he captained any IPL side or Australia in T20IS before but had proven his leadership for Australia in other formats.

However, leading a country and a franchise is quite different. Leading Australia where he has known his players for the majority of his career is quite different from leading an IPL side where he has to adapt and understand the skill sets of players sometimes he is unaware of in a short space of time. But all speculations were put to rest once the tournament started.

“Pat is just a calming influence and very well prepared. His performances always have a high standard and he has a strong ability to read the game,” head coach Daniel Vettori would say. “He likes to work with the other bowlers and coaches. There is a real collaborative style about him. It worked well in the IPL so far... we had some pressure situations with the ball having to defend totals when the teams were coming hard at us but his calming presence just helps everyone through that.”

Vettori who has also worked in the Australian coaching staff with Cummins would say, “Very similar ( style of captaincy to how he leads Australia). I think he gets how to utilize people to bring the best out of them and try to make them feel really good about their games.”

It is hard to find another franchise with the quality of overseas options to choose from that SRH possesses. However, the problem of plenty is still a problem which is what Aiden Markram and Brian Lara found out. The constant chopping and changing unsettled the side in 2023 and with inexperienced Indian players constantly shuffled to accommodate the overseas options. And that is where Cummins made sure there were limited moving parts in terms of players going out and coming. Dropping Marco Jansen after the first game against Kolkata Knight Riders and bringing in Travis Head is the only change Cummins made halfway through the season.

Not only the overseas players but Cummins managed to liberate and give freedom to the young Indian players. Among them, Abhishek Sharma is a classic who has been a consistent performer for his state side Punjab in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy but could not bring in the same form to SRH. However, this year he along with Head at the top of the order is blasting oppositions out of the game in the Powerplay and laying the foundations for monstrous scores which SRH are now accustomed to making regularly.

It is a joy for the fans of Orange Army who have seen the franchise depend entirely on David Warner for years to put a par score on the board to keep breaking the existing T20 batting records. However, what came out of the syllabus was poor bowling performances.

The decline of Bhuvneswar Kumar in the last few years has hurt, however, Cummins has continued to show faith in him.

Vettori too backed his bowlers: ” When you post as big scores you expect teams to come hard at us and that is what we have seen so far. And all the three 200- run scores that teams have prepared to come hard at us. There is an understanding that the wickets are good, we just have to navigate our way through that.”

With Cummins taking the onus of bowling the pressure match- turning overs on himself, SRH have continued to march on.