Pat Cummins Interview: T20 cricket is at the mercy of formPremium

After a disappointing IPL campaign, Sunrisers Hyderabad captain Pat Cummins believes that the side’s rebuild leading up to next season should be all about tweaking their approach over meddling with a squad filled with ‘high quality players’

Having redefined power hitting in T20 cricket last season and strengthening its batting unit in the auctions, Sunrisers Hyderabad went into the 2025 Indian Premier League campaign as one of the title favourites. It began the season by scoring the second-highest total ever (286 vs Rajasthan Royals) and closed it with the third biggest (278 vs Kolkata Knight Riders). Everything in between, however, was far from rosy.

To state that SRH has disappointed this season would be an understatement, something that skipper Pat Cummins acknowledged. The pre-season talk of SRH breaching the 300-run mark only got louder when Ishan Kishan’s debut century saw it take RR to the cleaners, a match that Cummins, in hindsight, believes only raised the bar even higher.

In an exclusive chat with The Hindu , the Australian opened up about SRH faltering under the weight of expectations, weighed in on a possible squad rebuild, looked back on Australia’s ODI World Cup success on Indian soil in 2023 and more. Excerpts.

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Enough has been spoken about SRH’s campaign. How have you, as an individual, processed it all game by game? What has the pressure been like on you and everyone in the team?

The results haven’t been probably as we hoped, but outside of that it’s been great. Similar squad to last year, but some new faces, it’s been great fun. I am really proud of how everyone enjoyed themselves and each other’s company, and trained hard. It’s been a good couple of months.

I think that first game, getting 280-odd, obviously set the bar really high. That was as good a pitch as you’re ever going to get. As a whole, it’s about assessing what you think is a good score and each game that might change. I think, at times, we could have been a little bit better at that.