Abhishek Sharma or Ishan Kishan, who will be the captain of SRH in the absence of Pat Cummins?

By Samira Vishwas On Mar 17, 2026

Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) may have to play without captain Pat Cummins in the opening matches of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026. Australian fast bowler Cummins has still not fully recovered from his back injury. Cummins was able to play only one match in the Ashes series due to injury. He remained out of the recently concluded T20 World Cup 2026. According to reports, he is undergoing rehab and will join SRH late. In such a situation, who will take charge of the team in his absence is a big question.

Who will be handed over the captaincy?

If Cummins is not available, the command can be given to either Abhishek Sharma and Ishan Kishan. Abhishek has been associated with SRH for the last 6 seasons and knows the franchise very well but Ishan may be given preference due to his captaincy experience. Last year, Ishan captained Jharkhand in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy and made it champion. In this T20 tournament, Ishaan also performed brilliantly with the bat. He was the highest run scorer by scoring 517 runs in 10 innings at a strike rate of 197.32. That means the responsibility of captaincy had no impact on his batting.

Also read: First Butler went, then Sanju… Now Yashasvi-Parag will become the savior of Rajasthan Royals?

Who else are the contenders?

Apart from Abhishek-Ishaan in the SRH team, Travis Head and Heinrich Klaasen are also contenders for captaincy. However, there is little hope that either of them will be handed over the command. Head recently captained Australia in two T20 World Cup matches, in which the Kangaroo team won one and lost one. Australia suffered a crushing defeat against Zimbabwe under Head’s captaincy.

What is SRH’s schedule?

SRH will face Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the opening match of IPL 2026. This match will be played at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. After this, on April 2, SRH will face Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at Eden Gardens and will play its first home match on April 5, in which it will face the challenge of Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). After the short break, SRH’s next encounter is scheduled for April 11 against Punjab Kings (PBKS) in New Chandigarh.

Also read: One great batsman in batting… will bowling sink the boat of Lucknow Super Giants?

SRH starting schedule in IPL 2026

vs – RCB, March 28, Bengaluru
vs – KKR, April 2, Kolkata
vs – LSG, 5 April, Hyderabad
vs – PBKS, 11 April, Mullanpur

SRH full squad: Pat Cummins (captain), Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan (wicketkeeper), Heinrich Klaasen, Aniket Verma, R Smaran, Salil Arora, Brayden Carse, Harsh Dubey, Jack Edwards, Cranes Phuletra, Liam Livingstone, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Kamindu Mendis, Harshal Patel, Jaydev Unadkat, Shivam Mavi, Ishan Malinga, Shivang Kumar, Zeeshan Ansari, Saqib Hussain, Prafulla Hinge, Amit Kumar, Omkar Tarmale