Kishan takes charge while Cummins waits in the wings

Ishan Kishan has lived through a whirlwind few months. Not too long ago, he seemed some distance away from the Indian setup, his central contract gone and his place uncertain. And then, almost abruptly, the tide turned.

It began at the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, where Kishan smashed two hundreds and led Jharkhand to the title, forcing his way back into contention. The surge was impossible to ignore and India reshaped their World Cup plans on the fly, handing Kishan an 11th-hour entry.

He justified that call emphatically. Kishan starred in the marquee clash against Pakistan and played a decisive hand again in the final against New Zealand, studding India's win with 317 runs – just four short of Player of the Tournament Sanju Samson's tally – at a strike-rate of 193.29.

Zoom out further, and the numbers underline the scale of his run. Since IPL 2025, Kishan has piled up 1049 runs in 23 T20 innings, averaging 47.68 and striking at 202.11. So when Sunrisers Hyderabad were forced into naming a stand-in captain with Pat Cummins' return from injury delayed, the decision carried far less uncertainty than it might have a few months ago. Kishan, in the middle of a purple patch, felt like a natural progression.

"I think it started last year where we obviously added a senior player to the group and the leadership that he exuded… it really brought energy to the group," SRH head coach Daniel Vettori said on the eve of the IPL opener.

"So when Patty [Cummins] was unfortunately out of the initial stage of the tournament, we obviously had some decisions to make and his experience with his state team in particular had been so impressive and then obviously he was in really good form. So between Abhishek [Sharma, interim vice captain] and himself, we feel like we've got a really good leadership group to lead us this year."

There is, of course, no clean replacement for a player like Cummins – leader and spearhead rolled into one. Vettori acknowledged as much.

"It's always a challenge when you take out that integral part of your team as captain and fast bowler. But I think we've got suitable replacements and I know Ishan is incredibly excited about being captain of the team and we can lean on Pat the whole time until he's actually able to play," Vettori said.

For now, Cummins' return is about patience. His return timeline hinges not on general fitness, but on the gradual, careful build-up of bowling loads following a back stress fracture. He has played just one competitive game – the Adelaide Ashes Test – since July last year.

"His fitness has been exceptional because he's obviously been out of the game for an extended period of time so he's had that time to work on that fitness," Vettori said.

"And the only challenge for him was the bowling loads and so once he got the all clear from Cricket Australia to build those bowling loads, it's obviously a bit of a painstaking process to get the loads up to where he feels confident and strong about bowling. But fitness is good, it's just the bowling loads now so over the course of the next couple of weeks he'll keep building and hopefully we can get a definitive timeline, probably in the next 10-12 days around when he can return to play."