Sunrisers Hyderabad will take a call on pacer Pat Cummins’s availability in about 10 to 12 days, head coach Daniel Vettori said. “Cummins is fit, but is working on his bowling load”, he said.
“His fitness has been exceptional. He’s been out of the game for an extended period of time, so he’s had time to work on fitness. The only challenge for him was the bowling loads. Once he got the all-clear from Cricket Australia to build those bowling loads, it’s a bit of a painstaking process to get the lungs up to where he feels confident and strong about bowling. Hopefully we can get a definitive timeline, probably in the next 10-12 days, on when he can return to play,” Vettori said in the pre-match press conference here on Friday.
Vettori stated that three Indian uncapped batters — R. Smaran, Salil Arora and Aniket Verma — are all in the race to gain spots in the eleven. “Smaran is probably in the best form among anyone in India. Salil’s form in the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy and warm-up games has been incredibly impressive. Abhishek (Sharma) has been a huge fan of him. We just have to balance our fifth and sixth bowler options against a very strong RCB batting line up,” Vettori said.
Stand-in captain Ishan Kishan and his deputy Abhishek form the right leadership group, the coach said. “Ishan has been around in the IPL for a long time now. He has led in the under-19s, and he has led his State team to the Syed Mushtaq title. He is a confident player and leader — attributes that we looked at when he was appointed. Ishan and Abhishek are good friends, and they know the team exceptionally well. They will lead from the front,” the former New Zealand captain said.
The main quotes:
SRH is known for its all-out attacking approach, but the key to success would be to adapt to challenging conditions. “We are an aggressive team that bats deep. On really good surfaces, our batters are difficult to stop. The challenge for us this year is when we get surfaces that are a little bit tricky, how we adapt to them, how we assess,” SRH head coach Daniel Vettori said.
South African Heinrich Klaasen’s presence at number four adds strength to the SRH batting line-up. “I think Klaasen will come in more often than not at four. I think that suits him really well, gives him some time to settle in, take a couple of balls and then be the explosive batsman that he is. And we’ve got a number of candidates this year to fit those number five, six, seven slots,” Vettori said.
Published on Mar 27, 2026
