IPL 2026: Ishan Kishan announced Pat Cummins' captaincy replacement at SRH, Abhishek Sharma to serve as deputy

Pat Cummins will miss the early part of the upcoming Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, and to fill the captain's vacant role, Sunrisers Hyderabad have named star wicketkeeper-batter Ishan Kishan to play the part. Until the time Cummins arrives in the dressing room, attacking opener Abhishek Sharma will be playing the role of Kishan's deputy.

Notably, Cummins has missed a lot of cricket of late due to back stress that requires efficient management of his workload. The Australian international, who was supposed to be fully available for Australia in the Ashes 2025-26, played only one match throughout the five-Test series and was subsequently ruled out of the T20 World Cup.

With him missing the early part of the upcoming marquee tournament, SRH were looking for an able captain with a strong resume in T20 cricket, and Kishan serves as a blessing in disguise. The Patna-born recently led Jharkhand to the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy title and shortly made a national comeback to help India win the T20 World Cup. Kishan has also captained India A during multiple home and away assignments.

Abhishek's role, though, will be very limited as a vice-captain. The Punjab-born cricketer has captained his state side in domestic cricket during early days and has also captained the Under-19 Indian team during bilaterals and multinational events. He would return to being the specialist opener alongside Travis Head once Cummins joins the unit.

Speaking more of SRH, the 2016 champions are slated to open their campaign against their finalists from that year – the Royal Challengers Bengaluru. The Rajat Patidar-led side will give a strong challenge to the Orange Army, as the two teams start the proceedings for the nineteenth edition of the elite tournament on March 28 at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru.

Sunrisers Hyderabad's squad for IPL 2026

Abhishek Sharma, Aniket Verma, Brydon Carse, Eshan Malinga, Harsh Dubey, Harshal Patel, Heinrich Klaasen, Ishan Kishan, Jaydev Unadkat, Kamindu Mendis, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Pat Cummins, R Smaran, Travis Head, Zeeshan Ansari, Shivang Kumar, Sakib Hussain, Salil Arora, Onkar Tarmale, Amit Kumar, Liam Livingstone, Shivam Mavi, Jack Edwards