Simon Doull is not sure whether the SunRisers Hyderabad’s (SRH) acquisition of Australia speedster Pat Cummins for a massive amount implies he would lead the franchise in IPL 2024. Notably, SRH bought the Australian Test and ODI captain for a whopping ₹20.50 crore at the auction in Dubai on Tuesday as well. They bought six players in total, with Travis Head and Wanindu Hasaranga being their other two overseas players.
Reviewing the auction on Star Sports, Doull said: “Maybe they are looking for a captain. We have joked a little bit about it. Does (Aiden) Markram play every game now? They haven’t announced their skipper. Does Pat Cummins take over that franchise? Does he come in and play a lot more instead of a (Marco) Jansen next year for them? That’s going to be the question mark. Now that you have paid all this money, you have got to get him into that team. Where does he start and whose place does he take? They have got a lot of high-quality overseas talent.”
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Simon Doull also added that SRH has six to seven overseas players who could easily play every game but won’t be able to play due to the IPL rule of allowing only four overseas players in the playing XI. Meanwhile, Tom Moody also added that the SunRisers Hyderabad are spoilt for choice after the auction as well.
“I think SunRisers have had an outstanding auction. They have covered every single base. The biggest challenge they are going to face is what is their best combination and trying to create a pathway to that best XI but also to communicate that, which is not going to be easy. They have got a lot of options there. They have got a lot of match-winners. The one thing we don’t know is who is going to captain this side. One thing we do know is that I heard Muttiah Muralitharan during the auction that they were thrilled to get Travis Head because they wanted him as an opener. That tells me one of Abhishek Sharma, Mayank Agarwal and Rahul Tripathi is missing out because you can’t obviously have Head up there amongst all those others. It’s going to be very interesting to see how they find their best combination, both from an overseas and domestic perspective,” he concluded.
