Pat Cummins SRH’s clueless captain: Where did he go wrong in IPL 2025?

What were the key reasons behind Pat Cummins-led Sunrisers Hyderabad’s underwhelming campaign in IPL 2025?

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) ended as runners-up in the 2024 Indian Premier League (IPL). In contrast, they were one of the first teams to be knocked out of the race for the play-offs in 2025. Pat Cummins, who inspired SRH to the final last season, looked clueless as a captain as he could neither lead from the front, nor could he get the team together to earn a play-off berth.

Here’s a look at what went wrong for the SRH captain this season.

Auction debacle 
SRH let go of a few key players in Aiden Markram, and Bhuvneshwar Kumar although they managed to retain the core players in Abhishek Sharma, Travis Head, Cummins, Nitish Kumar Reddy, and Heinrich Klaasen. However, they could not find suitable replacements for Markram and Bhuvi. The two players, as witnessed, have played stellar roles for the new teams this season. 

Markram’s replacement, Ishan Kishan, flattered to deceive this season. Kishan began with a bang, hitting a ton in his first match for SRH, but then faded away. Veteran Mohammed Shami, who replaced Bhuvi, was completely out of sorts this season, and was not the same player he was before the one-year injury lay-off. These auction blunders came to haunt SRH and crippled captain Cummins as the replacements could not perform to potential.

Sub-par bowling performance
Cummins, a new-ball bowler or one change, was not his usual self this season. He struggled to pick up wickets, putting pressure on other bowlers to make a breakthrough. Except against Delhi when he took 3/19, Cummins lacked penetration, and consistency with his line and length, and could not lead from the front or inspire his teammates to bowl their heart out. 

The likes of Shami, Harshal Patel, Adam Zampa have had a poor outing this season. New young bowlers in Eshan Malinga, Harsh Dubey and Zeeshan Ansari bowled well in patches, but could not come together as a fierce bowling unit. 

Cummins, who leads Australia in Tests, for once, could not bring his leadership skills to the fore to help his bowling unit to rise to the challenge. As a result, SRH were ousted early in the tournament. 

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Rigidity cost SRH heavily 
SRH were successful last season as they adopted a fearless and aggressive batting strategy where Abhishek and Travis Head consistently gave the team great starts. However, this season, despite Sharma and Head being back as openers, they could not repeat the same magic. 

SRH followed the same strategy this season where they went after every ball and paid the price of losing wickets in a heap. Even when Head and Abhishek were dismissed early batting aggressively, the batters to follow relied on the same strategy to hit out rather than building the innings. 

There was no Plan B if the ‘High Risk, High Reward’ style of the game didn’t work. This hurt SRH chances of making it to the play-offs.

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Lack of creativity, course correction & plan for future 
Being the captain, Cummins had the liberty and the responsibility to try something new if results were not going in his favour in the initial phase of the tournament. But Cummins went through his motions as the captain. There were no hard decisions taken and the non-performers persisted. There were no backup plans if the High Risk, High Reward game was not working. 

In comparison, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) could be lauded for taking the steps for the next season after they realised the play-offs were a distant dream. CSK brought in new players such as Ayush Mhatre, Urvil Patel and Dewald Brevis in the XI to test and groom them for the next season. SRH failed to give enough chances to the reserve players to come good, and force a bid to qualify for play-offs. 

The way forward
SRH have to keep this poor season behind and focus on working on their shortcomings so that they are better prepared for next season. SRH might let go Cummins or give the Aussie another chance to turn things around. They also have to get their auction strategy right and cover loopholes in the squad. Also, SRH need to get their strategy in place or have multiple plans to fall back on rather than going with one approach of High Risk, High Reward cricket.

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