Unfinished business: Shreyas Iyer’s Punjab Kings target IPL 2026 glory

Mohali’s PCA Stadium has not hosted a victory parade since the IPL’s birth in 2008, but the Punjab Kings dressing-room already carries the hush of expectation that precedes one. Last May they were six runs short of history, watching Royal Challengers Bengaluru lift a trophy that had spent most of the night within Punjab’s reach. The pain has not dulled; it has been weaponised.

Shreyas Iyer, the silent orchestrator of the league stage-topping 2025 campaign, begins 2026 still searching for the one line missing from an otherwise glittering résumé: IPL-winning captain. His 604 runs were only half the story. Between overs he moved fielders like chess pieces, threw the ball to Arshdeep Singh for 21 telling overs and, most importantly, absorbed the chaos that used to consume this franchise. The 30-year-old’s leadership is not chest-thumping; it is surgical, and it has convinced a dressing-room that finals are no longer fantasy.

Around him is a squad that general managers describe as “settled, not settled for.” Prabhsimran Singh, broad-shouldered and fearless, cashed 549 runs at a strike-rate of 160.53 last season and will again be asked to set the early tempo alongside Priyansh Arya, whose debut-year pyrotechnics—475 runs at 179.24—set an uncapped-player record. How Arya handles second-season scouting reports could decide whether Punjab’s Powerplay juggernaut keeps rolling.

The middle order remains cricket’s best-kept secret. Nehal Wadhera’s 369 runs came at 145.84, often after early wickets, while Shashank Singh’s unbeaten 30-ball 61 in the final, struck while the trophy slipped away, advertised both bravado and belief. Together they average 24 years of age and a lifetime of being told they are merely support acts.

Balance is reinforced by an all-round armory most teams covet. Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen and Azmatullah Omarzai give Punjab three seam-bowling, long-batting options in the same XI. When conditions demand an Indian spin-batting hybrid, Harpreet Brar and Suryansh Shedge slide in without diluting either discipline.

With the ball, Yuzvendra Chahal’s Rs 18 crore retention ties him with Arshdeep as the squad’s highest earner and primary wicket-taker. At 35, the leg-spinner’s mandate is simple: replicate the control and breakthroughs that allowed Punjab to defend sub-par totals last year.

On 31 March the Kings open against Gujarat Titans, but the real opponent is history. No Punjab team has ever gone back-to-back to a final; this group sees that void as motivation rather than omen. They are no longer the league’s happy-go-lucky entertainers. They are the defending runners-up, a heavyweight contender carrying six runs of unfinished business into every over.