There’s a particular kind of quiet that surrounds teams that are on the threshold of something big. Not the silence of absence but of anticipation. Punjab Kings walk into the new IPL season carrying exactly that.Last year, Punjab lost a gut wrenching final, by just six runs, to Royal Challengers Bengaluru after topping the league stage. Skipper Shreyas Iyer led the batting with 604 runs while Arshdeep Singh spearheaded the bowling with 21 wickets. It was arguably the most complete Punjab Kings season in the franchise’s history. And yet, at the end of it all, the trophy still wasn’t theirs.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Runner-up, the record books will say. But those who watched closely will remember something else. A side that had started to maximise itself. And now, as the new season looms, they return not as hopefuls but as a team with pedigree.At the centre of it stands Shreyas Iyer. In the IPL, he is trusted, even assured. Outside of it, especially in India’s T20 conversations, he remains a peripheral figure. It is a strange duality: a leader of men in one arena, a question mark in another. That dissonance often sharpens cricketers. With Iyer, it has added layers.
Last season, his captaincy wasn’t loud. It rarely is. But it was deliberate. A field tweak here, a bowling change there, an ability to hold nerve when games tilted. What Punjab found in him was not just a batter who could anchor but a mind that could absorb chaos.Iyer, who is one of IPL’s most decorated active franchise captain, arrives this season with something to prove. Not to the Indian cricket board (BCCI) necessarily, but to himself, and perhaps to the franchise whose maiden title he has promised to deliver.It’s a settled squad, built over two careful years. Punjab’s identity is no longer just about flair; it is about balance. And much of that rests on their Indian core, a group of players who, in many ways, mirror Iyer’s own narrative: talented, sometimes overlooked, often decisive.Take their top order. It is expected to carry both intent and responsibility. Prabhsimran Singh was the team’s second-highest run-scorer in IPL2025, finishing with 549 runs in 17 innings at a strike rate of 160.53. The Powerplay partnership he formed with Priyansh Arya was the foundation of PBKS’s dream run to the final.Prabhsimran is one of those batters who was made for T20 cricket — a big-shouldered, right-handed hitter who doesn’t waste the first six overs. He is no longer a prospect. Last season confirmed him as a performer.And then there is Priyansh Arya, a left-hander who exploded onto the IPL stage in 2025. Arya smashed 475 runs in 17 innings at a blistering 179.24 strike-rate, setting the record for most runs by an uncapped debutant. His debut season was sensational. But IPL is a tournament where bowlers adapt fast. Whether Arya can counter the challenges thrown at him by better-prepared bowlers will be one of the most interesting subplots of this year’s tournament.In the middle order, there is intrigue. Nehal Wadhera and Shashank Singh form perhaps the most underrated middle order pair in IPL. Wadhera scored 369 runs in 16 matches at a strike-rate of 145.84 in IPL2025. Shashank, meanwhile, scored 350 runs across the season, including an unbeaten 61 off 30 balls in the final against RCB. That knock by Shashank in the final — in a losing cause, knowing the title was slipping away, still swinging — told you everything about the character of this Punjab team.Where Punjab have quietly stolen a march on some rivals is in the allrounders’ department. The trio of Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen and Azmatullah Omarzai gives them seam-bowling muscle and long batting, while Harpreet Brar and Suryansh Shedge add Indian options who can contribute with both bat and ball.Among the bowlers, Yuzvendra Chahal will be Punjab’s strike spinner. Retained for a massive Rs 18 crore, the 35-year-old Chahal is the joint highest paid player in the squad alongside Arshdeep Singh.As Punjab Kings gear up to open their 2026 campaign against the Gujarat Titans on March 31, the narrative around them has fundamentally shifted. They are no longer the perennial underdogs of the IPL. They are the defending runners-up, a heavyweight contender with a score to settle.
