The Kings march to uncharted territory with renewed confidence Premium

The Kings march to uncharted territory with renewed confidence

“Punjab Kings will finish in the top two this season. I’ll message you after the 14th match to rerun this podcast.” When Shashank Singh, one of the breakout stars of the franchise from IPL 2024, said this in an assured voice to a show host in March, ahead of the new season, one couldn’t have been blamed for shrugging it off as presumptuous talk. After all, he was placing his bet on a team that has an empty trophy cabinet, and only two semifinal/playoff qualifications to show in its 17-year-old IPL journey, to be a sure-shot contender for the top spots.

Be that as it may, two months after his bold prediction, as Shashank addressed the press conference after the match against the Mumbai Indians on May 25, he seemed prophetic. Thrashing an in-form Mumbai side with a seven-wicket win, the Kings rose to the pole position on the points table and secured a spot in Qualifier-1, just as he foretold.

Known for chopping and changing of squads every auction cycle and appointing new captains — 17 of them in 18 years — the Kings had earned the off-putting tag of perennial underperformers over the years.

The last time they entered the playoffs, they were not even called the Punjab Kings. The red-and-silver brigade of Kings XI Punjab had yet to be rechristened into the new identity.

After finishing in the top four under the leadership of Yuvraj Singh in the inaugural year of the tournament, their best-ever season came in 2014 under the wings of George Bailey. Bossing the league phase and entering the final that year, the Kings fell agonisingly short of reaching the pinnacle as they went down against KKR in the summit clash.

A host of personnel came and went in the ten seasons since, but a playoff qualification, let alone the top two spot, eluded their grasp. Not even seasoned Indian players like R. Ashwin, K.L. Rahul and Shikhar Dhawan, who held the captaincy mantle, and coaches like Mike Hesson, Anil Kumble and Trevor Bayliss couldn’t bring the fortunes to the side, leaving the fans frustrated for a decade.

Going into the mega player auction this year, the Kings once again cleared the slate and had the biggest purse to build the squad from scratch, as has become routine at the start of every auction cycle. And when Ricky Ponting, the new coach at the helm, roped in his former Delhi Capitals skipper Shreyas Iyer for ₹26.75 crore, it did raise a few eyebrows.