Australian pacer and SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) captain Pat Cummins is set to miss the initial phase of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 due to injury, the franchise confirmed on Wednesday. The side also announced that Ishan Kishan will be the man leading the 2016 champions in Cummins’ absence. This comes as a new responsibility for Kishan, who led Jharkhand to its maiden Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy title last year. The southpaw has also continued to impress with his batting heroics. Meanwhile, SRH have handed the role of vice-captain to their star opener Abhishek Sharma.

Cummins continues to recover from his lingering back injury, which also saw him miss the recently concluded T20 World Cup.

Pat Cummins will miss a few games while recovering from injury.

Until he recovers, Ishan Kishan will be the Captain and Abhishek Sharma will be the Vice-Captain. pic.twitter.com/etXJUkQJeG


— SunRisers Hyderabad (@SunRisers) March 18, 2026

The right-arm Australian pacer is also the skipper of Australia in the ODI and Test formats. He was handed the captaincy of SRH ahead of IPL 2024. Under his leadership, the franchise reached Qualifier 2 and finished at the sixth spot the following season.

In the past couple of seasons, SRH have broken several batting records. With the likes of Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen and Liam Livingstone in the team, the fans would be hoping to witness fireworks of the highest quality from the SRH batting unit once again. They would also be hoping that the opening pair of Travis-Head and Abhishek will be back to their record-breaking ways and set new benchmarks in T20 cricket, like in the 2024 edition.

SunRisers Hyderabad complete squad for IPL 2026: Abhishek Sharma, Aniket Verma, Brydon Carse, Eshan Malinga, Harsh Dubey, Harshal Patel, Heinrich Klaasen, Ishan Kishan, Jaydev Unadkat, Kamindu Mendis, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Pat Cummins, Smaran Ravichandaran, Travis Head, Zeeshan Ansari, Salil Arora (Rs 1.50 crore), Shivang Kumar (Rs 30 lakh), Liam Livingstone (Rs 13 crore), Jack Edwards (Rs 3 crore), Amit Kumar (Rs 30 lakh), Krains Fuletra (Rs 30 lakh), Sakib Hussain (Rs 30 lakh), Onkar Tarmale (Rs 30 lakh), Praful Hinge (Rs 30 lakh), and Shivam Mavi (Rs 75 lakh).

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