Cummins to join SRH on Friday; targets April 25 return

Pat Cummins is set to join Sunrisers Hyderabad on April 17, a day before their home match against Chennai Super Kings, but will be available to play only from April 25, when SRH are scheduled to face Rajasthan Royals in Jaipur.

"He's flying today so he will be with us I think this evening," said SRH head coach Daniel Vettori, who added that "the plan is for the 25th (of April)" when asked about the regular skipper's return to the playing eleven.

Before the season got underway, Cummins had outlined a tentative return window, targeting the latter stages of the IPL. "I'm back bowling. I'm bowling basically every third day at the moment. We've mapped out a plan to get me right by the middle of the tournament. So hopefully, if nothing goes wrong, I'll play the back half, plus the final," he had said.

Cummins had linked up with SRH on March 27, a day before their opening fixture against Royal Challengers Bengaluru, and stayed on for their next game against Kolkata Knight Riders on April 2. He travelled with the squad to Kolkata before returning to Australia, where he underwent a fitness test and will now rejoin the SRH squad.

In Cummins' absence, SRH struggled with their pace combination early on in the competition but eventually found the answer in two debutants – Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain – who bagged four-wicket hauls against Rajasthan Royals.

While Vettori was pleased with the bowling show put on by the two in the previous game, the head coach hinted that there could be some changes to the combination in the game against CSK, based on the conditions.

"Obviously we're very, very satisfied with the way that bowling group bowled but we're going to have to check conditions again. We're playing on the same wicket as the last game and obviously Hyderabad's been exceptionally hot, so anticipating the wicket may be slightly different to the last one and that may mean that we have to make some changes. But they'll be tactical changes, obviously because the bowling group was so effective last game," said Vettori.

About the bowling performance itself in the last game, Vettori added: "9 for 5, that's what impressed me the most. Look I think particularly against [Vaibhav] Sooryavanshi and [Yashasvi] Jaiswal, who have been so incredibly successful since they've become an opening partnership to, I suppose, have no fear going into that bowling spell, two guys who I don't think ever bowled to either of them before maybe a little bit in domestic cricket but just still to have the confidence to go on and stick to their plans (that was impressive). And we know that that doesn't always work but when it does work it's incredibly satisfying."