IPL 2024: How Pat Cummins proved his captaincy mettle during SRH vs RR IPL 2024 Qualifier 2 in Chennai?

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IPL 2024: When Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) shelled out Rs 20.50 crore on Pat Cummins in the IPL 2024 auction it was certain that they were going to appoint him as the new captain of the team.

Aiden Markam, SRH's captain in 2023, won the SA20 league for the franchise in February, but the management went forward with the decision to hand Cummins the baton.

Ahead of the start of IPL 2024 season, Pat Cummins, who led Australia to World Test Championship (WTC) and ODI World Cup titles in 2023, made it clear that SRH would play a very aggressive brand of cricket under his captaincy.

Cummins walked the talk as SRH posted a 200-plus total five times, and 260-plus total three times. They also ended up posting 287 runs for the loss of three wickets against Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB). The total is highest in T20 cricket.

Cummins crossed the first hurdle after he guided SRH to the IPL playoffs for the first time in four seasons. Hyderabad finished 8th in 2021 and 2022, and tenth in the IPL 2023 season.

On Friday (May 24) at the MA Chidambram Stadium in Chennai, Cummins-led SRH defended 176 by 36 runs to qualify for the final. The team last qualified for an IPL final back in 2018. Overall, it will be their third appearance in the IPL mega final on Sunday.

Rajasthan Royals had entered the Qualifier 2 with an upper hand over Sunrisers Hyderabad. The spin-friendly Chepauk surface, and the RR bowling attack consisting of world class spinner Yuzvendra Chahal, and Ravichandran Ashwin, and dearth of renowned spinners in the SRH camp, tilted the odds in the favour of Sanju Samson's team, who were high on confidence after beating RCB in the Eliminator.

Pat Cummins Captaincy Fired SRH to their third IPL final

However, that caused no problem whatsoever for Cummins - the smiling Australia assassin. After his side posted a decent 175-run total on the board, he marshalled his bowling unit brilliantly.

After seven overs of pace bowling, Cummins introduced impact substitute left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed in the eight over. Off-spinner Abhishek Sharma took charge from the other end and the spin attack continued till the 16th over.

At a time when everyone thought SRH would miss having a quality spinner in their side, Shahbaz, Abhishek and Aiden Markram joined forces to bowl nine consecutive overs of spin, leaking just 57 runs and picking five wickets.

Notably, SRH did not name even a single specialist spinner in their playing eleven, but Cummins called up the perfect substitute in Shahbaz Ahmed (3/22), and the allowed youngster Abhishek to complete his quota of four overs after watching him pick the wicket of Samson and give away just four runs in the first.

Cummins did not come with a set plan, and instead modified it as per the need of the year. He did not flinch in giving experienced Jaydev Unadkat just one over despite the left-arm pacer conceding just five runs from it. The likes of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and T Natarajan also did not complete their full quota of four overs.

Containing the run flow was not what Cummins was aiming for, and in search of wickets he even ended up giving Markram, who bowled a wide to short fine-leg, an over.

The weakest SRH link emerged as their strongest under Cummins as strangled RR batters were restricted to 139/7 at the end of 20 overs. Cummins stood up to his reputation and showed why SRH have restored their faith and hope in him.

With the Hyderabad-based franchise already in the final, the gold-plated Australian captain will now be expected to win the silverware on the night of Sunday, May 26.