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

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.

You’re the only overseas player to lead a side this season. Has that made any difference to the pressure on you in any way?

I don’t think so. Last year there were a few more overseas captains, but it’s just the way it happens. I’ve really enjoyed it, working with Dan Vettori as the coach and some of the senior guys. I think having been captain last year helps this year because you’ve got a bit more experience.

There were quite a few big tactical decisions taken during the season. Mohammad Shami being dropped (for the game against Delhi Capitals in Hyderabad) and you picking up the new ball was one of them. What prompted that move?

It had been a difficult month or so for Shami, particularly on the pitch in Hyderabad which doesn’t offer a lot for fast bowlers. We thought it was a good opportunity to get Eshan Malinga back in and Harshal [Patel] and [Jaydev] Unadkat bowled really well. It was just a bit of a change of make-up.

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I play Test cricket and I’m used to bowling with a ball that might seam and swing a little bit. So, I just thought I’d have the first crack. Obviously it [the game against DC] was washed out, but I thought the fielding was the best we fielded and the energy was really good. It would have been nicer if the rain didn’t come that day.

Across teams, taking the pace off the ball has worked for the quicks this season. Test match lengths have brought out the best dividends from the surface. How have you personally tweaked your approach?

I think in T20, the first two or three overs of a game are when you might be able to bowl a Test match at a line and length. The ball might seam or swing a little bit. But outside of that, it’s time for your yorkers and your solid balls.

That said, obviously the focus has been on that first ball, first over… to try and give it a chance to swing and seam.

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In that match against DC, you picked up a wicket with the first ball of your opening three overs. In hindsight, do you think SRH’s fortunes would have been different had you made the change earlier in the season?

No, you never know. I think I was as surprised as anyone [by how well my opening spell against Delhi Capitals was]. I’m normally terrible with my first ball, so that was good. I think the fifth over, it was a proper half volley and I got a wicket. Some days, it comes off and some days you bowl really well but you get hit for runs. That’s T20 cricket. That night was my night. T20 cricket is at the mercy of form. Sometimes you do well, sometimes you don’t.

Did the packed schedule, with very little rest between matches, add to the SRH’s troubles this season?

I think it’s good that you get an opportunity to play pretty quickly after a loss. We always talk about trying to put a loss aside but learn from it. I think (by) playing so many games within two months, you get to learn pretty quickly. We always concentrate on making sure we judge ourselves over a number of games. But once you have, try to learn those lessons. I think maybe we’re a little bit slow to learn some of those lessons.

How have the interactions between the younger players and experienced stars been this season? Anything or anyone you particularly took a shine to?

A couple of the young guys you always chat to. Everyone’s pretty relaxed. We’ve got loads of experience in our squad so the youngsters talk to different people. That’s one of the joys of captaining someone like Zeeshan [Ansari] in his first big season, kind of working with him and talking about bowling. I love doing that.

With the team not having the best of seasons, what do you do to relax when away from all the spotlight?

Yeah, I mean, my family was with me in India for a couple of weeks. So I’d be in the pool every day with my kids, chasing them around. When we had a day off, we played a little bit of golf, went to a brewery during the night just for a couple of beers and dinner and so on. Normally we go and get a coffee with a couple of guys.

Your family left India during the season and when you went to drop them at the airport, rumours began to circulate that you were leaving the team and going back home early. What was your reaction when you came across that ‘news’?

You do anything and someone’s going to make a news story. I’ve been doing it for long enough that it doesn’t really bother me. Honestly, it doesn’t bother me really at all nowadays. You want to try and correct any incorrect things. But I honestly just do my own thing.

What does the rebuild for SRH look like?

If you don’t have the season that you hoped for, I think your first response is ‘we need to change a lot of things.’ But if you look even across our games so far, we’ve kept a very similar batting line-up and even in the bowling department, there have been only one or two changes. That’s because we’re really happy with our squad. We think they are amazing, really high quality players who maybe haven’t had their best season. So I don’t think you’ll see too many changes. I think the rebuild will be more about tweaking the way we play rather than actually changing the players.

The World Test Championship (WTC) final is the big assignment after the IPL. How is the buzz about that on the Aussie WhatsApp chats?

After IPL, our minds shift very quickly into Test matches. A lot of the guys are excited to go over to London for the WTC final. It’s a place we play well at and also enjoy going to. So yeah, really excited to go over there and hopefully defend the title. I haven’t seen many of the boys for a couple of months so we’re all excited to get back together.

After two finals against India (WTC and the ODI World Cup), you will now take on South Africa for the WTC crown. How are you feeling ahead of the clash?

We’ve had a good run against India in finals over the last couple of years. South Africa, we haven’t played a lot of over the years, so it’s going to be a little bit different compared to, say, India, who we know really well.

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Your quip about silencing Ahmedabad before the 2023 ODI World Cup final is something that stayed with the billions in this country after that game. Do you ever revisit that match and how you went about it?

That [winning the World Cup] was a career highlight for me. I didn’t always think I would be winning a World Cup with some of my best mates in the Aussie team. We played there [in Ahmedabad] with SRH and it was a packed stadium, it brought back memories. It [the World Cup final] felt like you had a team of 11 players going against a whole country. It was just such a wonderful World Cup campaign. But to culminate in that final… as I said, I’ll remember that for a long time.

That Australian team was quite experienced. We had high expectations of ourselves. It’s those moments that you want to be involved in. You don’t want to sit back and let someone else be the match winner. You want to go out and take it on. Whatever happens, happens. That was the mindset all the guys had on that day. You saw from literally the first instance how everyone was diving around in the field. You just put everything into a game like that.

What was your favourite memory from the 2023 ODI World Cup, apart from winning it, of course?

It has to be Glenn Maxwell at Wankhede scoring the double hundred [against Afghanistan]. I was down the other end and I think that summed up a lot of our World Cup campaign.

Even when we didn’t particularly play well, one guy had an amazing game and dragged us out and kind of won it for us. We had no reason to win that game. But Glenn Maxwell just basically played the best innings I think we’ll ever see and got us home.