New Delhi, India

Former Indian opener Aakash Chopra has slammed the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) team management for appointing Pat Cummins as the new captain for IPL 2024. On Monday (March 4), the SRH camp announced Cummins taking over as the new skipper, replacing Aiden Markram. Cummins, who was bought by the franchise in IPL 2024 mini-auction for INR 20.50 crores, doesn't have great numbers in the IPL and isn't even Australia's captain in T20Is. Hence, his appointment hasn't been well received by Chopra. 

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'That is why Pat Cummins is not the captain of the team where 11 Australians play'

Talking on his YouTube channel, Chopra pointed out, "You have made Pat Cummins the captain but have you seen his recent IPL numbers? Check attentively, he concedes a lot of runs and doesn't score that many runs with the bat. Only four overseas players play. He neither bowls in the powerplay nor at the death."

"If he is not going to do all those jobs, you are spending 25 per cent of your overseas resources on a player whose place in the XI was not 100 per cent guaranteed in the IPL. That is why Pat Cummins is not the captain of the team where 11 Australians play, although he has won the World Cup, but not T20," Chopra opined.

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Chopra's claims are not incorrect, Cummins has an ordinary record in the IPL. The Aussie has only 45 wickets in 42 games, at an economy of 8.54, along with 379 runs. He withdrew from the IPL 2023 season and featured in only 12 matches in 2021 and 2022 editions; managing 16 wickets and 122 runs overall. For Australia, he has played only two T20Is since the 2022 T20 World Cup. Hence, Australia have Mitchell Marsh as their T20I captain despite Cummins winning the WTC and ODI World Cup titles as captain last year. 

Also read: IPL 2024: ODI World Cup-winning captain Pat Cummins named Sunrisers Hyderabad skipper

SRH removed Markram as the captain, who led them in IPL 2023. The South African batter, however, has led the Sunrisers Eastern Cape -- Hyderabad's sister franchise in SA20 -- to two successive titles (in 2023 and 2024). Chopra further stated that Markram could have retained his position as he had led the franchise amid a lot of confusion in the last IPL season.

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Chopra added, "There is a player named Aiden Markram who benefited the SunRisers franchise a lot. He made the SunRisers Eastern Cape the champions for two successive years in the SA20 league. However, he has been removed from the captaincy here. He captained one year in total where I felt there was a lot of confusion."

SRH squad for IPL 2024: Abdul Samad, Abhishek Sharma, Aiden Markram, Marco Jansen, Rahul Tripathi, Washington Sundar, Glenn Phillips, Sanvir Singh, Heinrich Klaasen, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mayank Agarwal, T. Natarajan, Anmolpreet Singh, Mayank Markande, Upendra Singh Yadav, Umran Malik, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Travis Head, Wanindu Hasaranga, Pat Cummins (c), Jaydev Unadkat, Akash Singh, Jhathavedh Subramanyan.