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Mitchell Starc
versus Pat Cummins. INR 24.75 crore as opposed to INR 20.50 crore. Hardly a
rivalry, even though it has been hyped up before this Saturday’s Eden Gardens
match between the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) and Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH). It
will simply be “weird looking across and seeing him in the other
dugout” for Cummins.
“I will say this: hopefully I don’t have to face Starc because that means
our batters have done quite well,” Cummins said at a press conference a
day off from the game. “It’s funny… it’s one of the beauties of the IPL; I
have been playing with Starcy for 15 years, [and] I can’t remember another game
where I have played against him. Also it’s going to be weird looking across and
seeing him in the other dugout.”
But there’s that big salary to live up to. “Yeah, being an opposition
captain, seeing how we go about playing him will be an interesting part of
tomorrow. But we’re both bowlers, so I am not sure we’ll cross [paths] too
much.”
Although Cummins has
been Australia’s Test and ODI captain and has played international cricket in
all formats since 2011, as has been discussed ever since he was selected SRH
captain for the 2024 IPL season, he has never captained a T20 side at a competitive
level. And fast bowling, too, for a captain.
“Really
excited, good to go,” Cummins said while acknowledging his lack of
experience helming a T20 side.
“It’s got its challenges,” he elaborated. “In that you play 14
games in six-seven weeks, plus finals. I’m used to playing a lot of Test
cricket, so four overs isn’t as taxing on your body. But it can be mentally
taxing, the travel, obviously a different country, play a new team every few
days you have to prepare for… But it’s nothing new, we’ve done it before.
Obviously, the game day is most important. That’s what we put most days into.
No teams play the same XI for all 14 games. I am sure we’ve got to call on our
squad and we’re lucky we’ve got a young, fit squad.
“I think it’s
been a part of the IPL, you have expectations, you have a lot of fans who
demand a lot out of the team, they want results. Yeah, being captain is
probably a little bit more [of responsibility]. But it’s not much different to
what we’re used to as players. We’ll give it our best.”