Ishan Kishan will be captaining Sunrisers Hyderabad in the first few games of the 2026 season of the Indian Premier League as regular captain Pat Cummins continues to struggle with his prolonged back injury.
The injury has kept Cummins away from competitive cricket for a long time. The Australian has played just one international match — an Ashes Test — since last July as he continues to recover from the lumbar stress. The injury forced the pacer to miss the ICC T20 World Cup as well.
SRH has named Abhishek Sharma as the vice-captain. Sunrisers will have the season opener against defending champions Royal Challengers Bengaluru at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on March 28. They will then take on Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on April 2.
Their first home game will be against Lucknow Super Giants on April 5. That will be followed by an away match in Chandigharh against Punjab Kings.
This will be Kishan's second season with SRH. He was bought by the team at the 2025 IPL auction for Rs 11.25 crore. The left-handed batter then went on to accumulate 354 runs at a strike rate of 152.58.
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IPL has only partially released the schedule of the upcoming season due to upcoming elections in Assam, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Puducherry.
The Orange Army had a disappointing run last year as they finished sixth on the points table with just six wins for 14 league games and failed to qualify for the playoffs.
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