Pat Cummins, the Sunrisers Hyderabad captain will be meeting his Australian teammate Mitchell Starc, the Kolkata Knight Riders core member in the third match of the ongoing IPL2024. Both teams will be facing each other at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata. While Pat Cummins is excited for his new role for the Hyderabad franchise, he opened up about going up against Mitchell Starc ahead of the match.

Friends become rivals in IPL 2024

Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc have been crucial members of the Australian side for a long time. While Cummins will lead the Hyderabad team in IPL 2024, Starc will be seen as the Kolkata team leading pacer. They will be meeting each other at the toss of the match between SRH and KKR tonight in Kolkata. While speaking of the same, Cummins said,

“I will say this: hopefully, I don’t have to face Starc because that means our batters have done quite well. It’s funny… it’s one of the beauties of the IPL; I have been playing with Starcy for 15 years, [and] I can’t remember another game where I have played against him. Also, it’s going to be weird looking across and seeing him in the other dugout.”

During the pre-match press conference, he also said, “Yeah, being an opposition captain, seeing how we go about playing him will be an interesting part. But we’re both bowlers, so I am not sure we’ll cross [paths] too much.”

See also: IPL 2024: Top 4 Kolkata Knight Riders players to be in focus

While speaking about expectations, “I think it’s been a part of the IPL, you have expectations, you have a lot of fans who demand a lot out of the team, they want results. Yeah, being captain is probably a little bit more [of responsibility]. But it’s not much different to what we’re used to as players. We’ll give it our best.”

Sunrisers Hyderabad paid a whooping INR 20.50 crores to secure the service of Pat Cummins, the Test and ODI captain of Australia. However, KKR bought Starc for INR 24.75 crores after releasing Cummins and Lockie Ferguson. Now it will be interesting to watch the battle of the two most expensive players in IPL 2024 as well.