Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar has opened up on the captaincy debate at SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) forward of the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). SRH, beneath the management of South Africa batter Aiden Markram, completed backside of the factors desk final season with simply 4 wins from 14 matches. Earlier this month, Markram captained SRH’s sister franchise SunRisers Eastern Cape to back-to-back SA20 league titles. However, SRH splashed Rs 20.5 crore on Australia’s World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins in the course of the IPL 2024 Players Auction.

Cummins was the costliest purchase at the moment earlier than Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) purchased his Australia teammate Mitchell Starc for Rs 24.75 on the similar public sale.

Cummins might exchange Markram for the SRH captaincy, contemplating the sum of money splashed on him by the franchise. However, the 2016 champions are but to make an official announcement concerning the identical.

Gavaskar, nonetheless, is for certain that Cummins will almost definitely lead the staff as an alternative of Markram.

“So now with Pat Cummins coming in, I am pretty certain that he will be the captain of the team and that will make a huge difference,” Gavaskar stated on Star Sports.

Gavaskar highlighted Cummins’ management qualities, which he believes SRH have been lacking within the earlier season of IPL.

“I think Pat Cummins was a smart buy, maybe a little over-expensive. Smart buy because he will bring the leadership aspect to their team, which was lacking the last time around. Last time around, some of the bowling changes that we saw in crucial games were just head-scratching, and that cost them matches,” he added.

Cummins had a sensational yr throughout codecs as he led Australia to the World Test Championship (WTC) title, in addition to the ODI World Cup, beating India in each the finals. 

Cummins mirrored on a profitable yr for Australian cricket and expressed his gratitude on being recognised as one of the best of one of the best in 2023.