Unfinished business: Shreyas Iyer’s Punjab Kings aim for IPL 2026 glory cricket news
There is a special kind of peace around the teams which are standing on the threshold of some big achievement. Not the silence of absence but of anticipation. That’s exactly what Punjab Kings is bringing to the new IPL season.Last year, Punjab lost to Royal Challengers Bangalore by just six runs after topping the league stage. captain Shreyas Iyer While led the batting with 604 runs Arshdeep Singh Led the bowling with 21 wickets. This was arguably the Punjab Kings’ most complete season in the history of the franchise. And yet, at the end of it all, the trophy still wasn’t theirs.Go beyond limits with our YouTube channel. Subscribe now!Runner-up, the record books will say. But those who looked closely would remember something else. A side that had started to maximize itself. And now, as the new season approaches, they return not as hopefuls but as a team with pedigree.Shreyas Iyer stands at the center of it. In the IPL he is trusted, even assured. Outside of that, especially in the India T20 conversation, he remains a peripheral figure. It’s a strange dichotomy: a leader of the people in one area, a question mark in another. That inconsistency often sharpens cricketers. With Iyer, layers have been added to it.
Last season, his captaincy was not strong. This rarely happens. But this was done intentionally. A change in the field here, a change in the bowling there, the ability to maintain patience at the turn of the game. What Punjab found in him was not just a batsman who could anchor, but also a mind that could absorb chaos.Iyer, who has been one of the most active franchise captains in the IPL, has something to prove this season. Not necessarily to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), but to himself, and perhaps to the franchise he has promised to lead to its first title.It is a well-organized squad, built over two meticulous years. Punjab’s identity is no longer just about nature; It’s about balance. And much of it owes to their Indian origins, a group of players who, in many ways, mirror Iyer’s own story: talented, sometimes overlooked, often decisive.Take their top order. There is expected to be both intention and responsibility. Prabhsimran Singh was the team’s second-highest run-scorer in IPL 2025, scoring 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 of reaching the final.Prabhasimran is one of those batsmen who is made for T20 cricket – a big-shouldered, right-handed hitter who doesn’t waste the first six overs. That is no longer a possibility. The last season established him as a performer.And then there is left-hander Priyansh Arya, who burst onto the IPL stage in 2025. Arya scored 475 runs in 17 innings at a strike rate of 179.24, setting a record for the most runs by an uncapped debutant. His first season was sensational. But IPL is a tournament where bowlers adapt quickly. Whether Arya can match the challenges posed by better-prepared bowlers will be one of the most interesting subplots of this year’s tournament.There is a conspiracy in the middle order. Nehal Wadhera and Shashank Singh are probably the most underrated middle-order pair in the IPL. Wadhera scored 369 runs in 16 matches at a strike-rate of 145.84 in IPL 2025. Meanwhile, Shashank scored 350 runs throughout the season, including an unbeaten 61 off 30 balls in the final against RCB. That innings of Shashank in the final – on the losing end, knowing the title was slipping away, still dangling – told you everything about the character of this Punjab team.Where Punjab has quietly taken the lead over some rivals is in the all-rounders department. The trio of Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jensen and Azmatullah Omarzai give them seam-bowling strength and length batting, while Harpreet Brar and Suryansh Shedge add Indian options who can contribute with both bat and ball.Among bowlers, Mohd. Yuzvendra Chahal Will be the strike spinner of Punjab. Retained for a whopping Rs 18 crore, the 35-year-old Chahal is the joint highest-paid player in the team along with Arshdeep Singh.As Punjab Kings prepare to begin their 2026 campaign against Gujarat Titans on March 31, the narrative around them has changed fundamentally. They are no longer the perennial underdogs of the IPL. He’s the defending runner-up, a heavyweight contender to be reckoned with.