Ishan Kishan has been bestowed the responsibility of leading Sunrisers Hyderabad until Pat Cummins isn’t fit to play. Kishan has been in top form in the recent times with his bat doing the talking for his domestic side Jharkhand, national team India and now the franchise side SRH.ย
From being snubbed from the central contracts, Kishan now finds himself in a great place. The wicketkeeper batter was roped in by SRH ahead of IPL 2025 and has now been made their interim skipper until Cummins is available to play. Cummins has already joined the SRH squad but is recovering from a lumbar stress injury as he eyes to play the second half of the IPL.
Here is what Vettori said
Meanwhile, SRH coach Vettori sounded relaxed on Kishan’s captaincy. “We’re fortunate enough that Pat has been around the group and he’s been able to have conversations with Ishan about his captaincy style,” Vettori said. “But Ishan has been highly successful in his captaincy career so far. So whilst it can be slightly different, we don’t look at [no Cummins on the field] as a negative at all [from the point of view of captaincy].
“As you saw by Ishan’s performance in the first game, he loves leadership, he loves being out there and I think it can have a real positive effect on his batting and keeping. As he gets to understand the group and the dynamic, he’s going to put his mark on it and I have no doubt that he will be a very effective leader for us.”
Slim room for error against Kishan: Vettori
The head coach then highlighted that there is very less room for a bowler to make error against Kishan as he is strong at playing on both sides of the wicket. Kishan displayed a stellar performance in the IPL 2026 opener against RCB, when he scored 80 from 38 balls in the losing cause. “There’s a very slim room for error [when bowling to Kishan] and his ability to hit both sides of the wicket, hit behind the wicket and then deal with the full ball aggressively means he puts pressure back on that bowler straight away,” Vettori said. “There’s no style of bowling that he’s ineffective against, so you can’t stifle him with spin. And pace bowling, he deals with exceptionally well.
“So straight away, when he walks out to the crease, he’s got confidence and an understanding of his game that he can take it on. He is prepared to take a bowler on from ball one and that puts a lot of pressure.
“He has been around for a long time, even though he’s so young, but he has a real confidence in his game and I think that’s born out of the success [with Jharkhand] in the Syed Mushtaq Ali tournament, being re-selected for India, and the success with India.”
KKR-SRH game on NZ-SA T20 World Cup semifinal pitch
Meanwhile, Vettori also noted that the KKR-SRH game will be played on the same surface where the New Zealand-South Africa T20 World Cup semifinal was played on; however adding that this one is greener than usual and expected less turn.
“I think there’s an immense amount of respect around those two and what they’ve done for the franchise, what they’ve done for their country, so in no way will we be taking them lightly, even if they didn’t have their best day of the last game,” Vettori said. “They’ve proven themselves time and time again, particularly at this venue, so the battle against those two tomorrow will be one of the key aspects of the game.”