Pat Cummins Set To Captain Sunrisers Hyderabad In IPL 2026; Franchise Confirms Ahead Of Mini Auction Next Month

One-time Indian Premier League winners Sunrisers Hyderabad have confirmed that Australia's senior pacer Pat Cummins will once again captain the Orange Army in the upcoming IPL edition next year.

The Sunrisers have made this announcement a month before all the 10 teams sit down to finalize their teams in the IPL 2026 mini-auction in Abu Dhabi.

This will be Pat Cummins' third straight season as captain of the Sunrisers Hyderabad. The Australian was bought for a then record fee of INR 20.50 crores during the 2024 IPL auction.

In his first season as captain, Pat Cummins led the Sunrisers to their first IPL final since the 2018 edition, where they had finished as runners-up. In the following season, however, the Orange Army weren't able to work their magic and endured a tough outing.

Hyderabad finished at the bottom half of the table in 6th after 6 wins and 7 losses and ended the season with 13 points.

Despite the tough outing last year, the SRH management have decided to put their faith on Pat Cummins, who is currently recovering from an injury and is set to miss the 1st Ashes test against England from November 21 onwards.

Over the last two seasons, Cummins has scalped a total of 34 wickets - 18 in 2024 and 16 in 2025. Overall in his IPL career, the World Cup winning captain has notched 79 wickets from 72 games since 2014.

Sunrisers Hyderabad Retained And Released Players List

Retained: Pat Cummins (c), Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Aniket Verma, R. Smaran, Ishan Kishan, Heinrich Klaasen, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Harsh Dubey, Kamindu Mendis, Harshal Patel, Brydon Carse, Jaydev Unadkat, Eshan Malinga, Zeeshan Ansari.

Released: Mohammed Shami (traded to Lucknow Super Giants), Adam Zampa, Rahul Chahar, Wiaan Mulder, Abhinav Manohar, Atharva Taide, Sachin Baby, Simarjeet Singh.

Purse: INR 25.50 crore

Slots available: 10 (2 overseas)