Sunrisers Hyderabad are fretting over the availability of their regular captain Pat Cummins, who is recovering from a lumbar stress issue. While Sunrisers have named Ishan Kishan as their interim captain, the leadership and the bowling void led by Cummins’ absence would be hard to fill.
Meanwhile, Cummins has landed in Bengaluru as he looks to recover from the injury. He felt the issue in July and played in only one competitive match since then, which was the third Ashes Test in December. He looked to get back in the T20 World Cup 2026, but a ‘minor setback’ made him miss the tournament.
The SRH skipper arrived in Bengaluru and did some light sprints at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Wednesday and then also bowled casually in an empty net. Cummins has shared a major update on his comeback.
Cummins targets IPL second-half for comeback
Cummins has set the second half of the IPL 2026 as his potential comeback time as he hopes to recover fully from the issue. During an interaction with the Business of Sport podcast, he said that the best-case scenario will be a return to full fitness for the second half of the IPL. "I'm still recovering from a back injury, but it's good. I'm back bowling in the nets," Cummins said, in an episode recorded late last week. "The IPL is starting soon. I won't make the start of that, but it shouldn't be too long before I'm back out there playing.
"I'm back bowling. I'm bowling basically every third day at the moment. We've mapped out a plan to get me right by [the] middle of the tournament, so hopefully, if nothing goes wrong, [I'll] play the back half plus the finals."
Cummins backs Ishan Kishan for leadership role
Meanwhile, the SRH skipper backed the interim captain Ishan Kishan to do well in his role. "Ishan's had a really successful captaincy stint with his local side in the last year or so," Cummins said as he stated that he goes to senior Indian players to break the language barrier.
"Those guys, you're leaning on anyway. We've got quite an experienced bowling group of local guys, so a few of the younger guys that come through that I don't know as well, particularly early on in a season, I'm definitely leaning on the local guys who do know them well - or even speak the language.
"Most of the guys speak really great English, but some of them don't, and there are local dialects, so that can be a little bit of a barrier for an international captain."
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