Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) have made their way to the final of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, under the leadership of Pat Cummins. The performance of the ‘Orange Army’ in this edition has been quite spectacular compared to how they ended the last season with the wooden spoon.
Sunrisers made a slippery start in the IPL 2024, with one solitary win in the first three encounters, before they got back on track with four consecutive victories, one of which was by a decent 67-run margin against the Delhi Capitals (DC).
But again, they looked to go down in the middle half of the season, with only one victory in the next four games, as that one win came by a narrow one-run margin against the Rajasthan Royals (RR). But the way Pat Cummins and co. made the comeback with the ten-wicket win over the Lucknow Super Giants, showed the character of their team.
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Pat Cummins one win away from MS Dhoni’s captaincy feat
On May 26, 2024, Sunday evening, the Sunrisers Hyderabad will take on the Kolkata Knight Riders at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, as Pat Cummins will look to end the eight-year-long wait for the ‘Orange Army’ of getting the IPL title.
The Australia captain will also get the opportunity to create history and equal the captaincy record of Mahendra Singh Dhoni of winning both the ODI World Cup and the Indian Premier League Trophy in the same season.
The year was 2011, when MS Dhoni, with a memorable six against Nuwan Kulasekara, took India over the line in the final of the 50-over World Cup, to end their 28-year-long wait, at the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
In the same season, leading the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), Dhoni won the IPL trophy for the second time by then. He later went on to touch it three more times, in 2018, 2021 and in the last season-2023.
On the other hand, Pat Cummins had already won the IPL as a player during the 2014 season with the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), but he is yet to lift the trophy as a captain. In this ongoing IPL 2024, he will have the chance to equal Dhoni’s record.
Pat Cummins won the ODI World Cup as a captain in 2023, leading the Australia team against India, at the iconic Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad. If he goes on to beat his former team KKR in the final of the IPL 2024, he will also replicate the same record as MS Dhoni.
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The Sunrisers, however, lost both of their games against KKR in 2024. In the league stage, they fell short by 4-runs, while Pat Cummins’ men were blown away by the KKR side in the first qualifier with eight-wickets in hand. They made a good comeback in the Eliminator against the Rajasthan Royals with a 36-run victory.
Now the question stands, can the Sunrisers Hyderabad win their second IPL title to help Cummins equaling MS Dhoni’s captaincy record?