Image Credit- BCCI
When SRH purchased
Pat Cummins for INR 20.5 crore (about US$2.47 million) in December, he became
the most expensive player to be purchased at an IPL auction. However, the
record was broken in less than two hours when KKR paid INR 24.75 crore (about
US$2.98 million) to sign Mitchell Starc. The two will square off in Kolkata
during the opening weekend of the 2024 Indian Premier League.
In 2023, Cummins led Australia to the World Test Championship and the ODI World
Cup, realising his dream year. However, he is in his first T20 cricket
captaincy role, and managing an IPL squad is very different from managing a
national team. Additionally, even though bowler Cummins is already headed for
success in Test cricket, the same cannot be said about him in T20s.
Daniel Vettori is
the new coach of the Sydney Rams. This marks the fourth season in a row that
they have had a new coach and captain. Once one of the most reliable IPL teams,
SRH has spent the last three seasons finishing twice at the bottom and once at No.
8 out of ten teams. Can Vettori and Cummins turn things around?
Starc was one man who was instrumental in Cummins’ triumphant year as captain
of Australia last year. As the only other elite seamer on the team, he will
need to step up his role for KKR.
Starc did not appear
in the Indian Premier League until 2015. He had taken 20 wickets at an economy
rate of 6.76 in 13 games while playing for the Royals. He has since averaged
8.14 an over in 41 Twenty20 Internationals. Australia even excluded him from a
match during the 2022 T20 World Cup. He too needs to make an impression before
the upcoming T20 World Cup in June.
Shreyas Iyer, who
skipped the 2023 season, is back leading KKR. His recent absence from the pitch
over the final two days of the Ranji Trophy match due to back spasms raised
some doubts about his fitness. He did, however, participate in KKR’s intrasquad
practise earlier this week, thus he is eligible to play on Saturday. However,
due to a quadriceps injury sustained during the first ODI against Afghanistan,
Dushmantha Chameera is probably going to miss the first few games.
Wanindu Hasaranga is unavailable at least for the first game. His status is a
little unclear, since he is in Sri Lanka’s Test squad in Bangladesh but can’t
really play those games as he is serving an ICC suspension. In a way, his
absence makes Cummins’ task of picking four overseas players easier.