Pat Cummins’ Midas touch seems temporarily to have deserted him as he’s presided over a chastening third-straight defeat for his usually-rampant Sunrisers Hyderabad outfit.
On a bad day for SRH’s Australian connection, Adam Zampa got dropped, Travis Head lasted two balls and Cummins’ bowling was mauled in a rematch of last year’s final, with Kolkata Knight Riders galloping to an 80-run win on Thursday in front of their adoring Eden Gardens faithful.
It wasn’t great news either for KKR’s Australian quick Spencer Johnson, who was also axed from their line-up while they began to resemble the champion outfit of 2024.
For Cummins and coach Daniel Vettori, masterminds of Hyderabad’s famed uber-aggressive approach, it looked time for a rethink about their all-or-nothing approach after another batting failure left them rooted to the bottom of the table.
“Not a great night,” admitted Cummins, whose side have struggled ever since opening their campaign with 286 against Rajasthan Royals, the second-highest ever IPL total.
“You’ve got to be realistic, it’s three games in a row it hasn’t come off for us but it was only a couple of weeks ago we got 280-odd.
“Our batters are at our best taking it on, but you have to think about if you could take different options.
“We won’t dwell on it too long. It’s a long tournament, not the ideal start, but we’ve still got plenty of time to catch up.”
Having put the champions in to bat, it all started well enough for Cummins when he had Quinton de Kock caught in the deep, pulling, in his first over while the equally dangerous Surine Narine was then captured at the other end by Mohammed Shami.
The Sunrisers looked ready to capitalise, keeping the home side down to a manageable total, despite a fine 50 off 32 balls from Angkrish Raghuvanshi, as KKR could only get to 4-122 off 15 overs.
But the Hyderabad attack, including Cummins himself, were then taken to the cleaners, leaking 78 runs off the last five.
Venkatesh Iyer proved Cummins’ main tormentor, hammering a 25-ball half-century before going on to 60 off 29 which enabled Kolkata to race on to a formidable 6-200.
The left-hander Iyer took a real fancy to Cummins’ quick stuff in the penultimate over of the innings, hitting him for 4, 4, 6, 4, 2 off successive balls and leaving him to nurse figures of 1-44. In total, the Australian captain was hit for four sixes in his four overs.
SRH looked as if they could have done with the control of Zampa, but he was surprisingly sidelined.
Asked whether the crafty spinner’s inclusion might have made the difference, Cummins shrugged: “Not too sure, we didn’t feel there was a heap of spin for us.”
When Sunrisers replied, Head smashed his first ball off fellow impact sub Vaibhav Arora for a driven boundary, but got caught trying to repeat the trick the very next delivery, slicing one high into the Kolkata night sky.
Arora (3-29) then got Ishan Kishan brilliantly snapped up by a diving Ajinkya Rahane at short extra cover, as SRH lost three wickets in the first 13 balls.
There was no way back, and once Arora returned to get rid of Heinrich Klaasen, who top-scored with 33, Sunrisers succumbed to 120 off just 16.4 overs, Cummins only managing 14 off 15 balls himself.
Content Source: www.perthnow.com.au