Punjab Kings will begin their IPL 2026 campaign against Gujarat Titans in New Chandigarh on Tuesday, with Shreyas Iyer set to start another season as the centrepiece of a side rebuilt around him during the 2025 mega auction. The franchise appointed Ricky Ponting as head coach in September 2024, retained only Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh ahead of the 2025 auction, and entered the auction with the league’s biggest purse.
That reset gave Punjab the room to chase a leader aggressively, and Ponting made it clear that Iyer was not a secondary option.
“When I got this role and realised that Shreyas was going into the mega auction, I made sure I had enough money in my purse to be able to buy him at the auction. I was really keen to work with Shreyas again,” Ricky Ponting said during an interaction with the media on the eve of their first IPL 2026 match.
Punjab eventually bought Iyer for ₹26.75 crore, one of the headline deals of that auction cycle, and then handed him the captaincy. The move carried both cricket and structural value. Iyer was already an established top-order Indian batter, and he was also coming in with captaincy weight in the IPL. For Punjab, that mattered in a squad build aimed at creating a stronger Indian core rather than patching holes one season at a time.
A rebuild built around Shreyas
Ponting’s explanation of the decision was broader than personal comfort or an old working relationship. “It was not just about the relationship that we had,” he said. “Understanding where this team and this franchise have been over the last 15 years, I wanted to really try and rebuild the team from the bottom up. And the only way you can do that, I think, in IPL cricket, is by bringing the best Indian players into your team.”
That line speaks directly to Punjab Kings’ auction strategy. After keeping only two uncapped players before the 2025 mega auction, the franchise had effectively chosen a hard reset. Iyer became the defining piece of that reset, not only because of his reputation, but because Punjab were trying to build a side with a firmer Indian spine.
Ponting also underlined why Iyer remains central to that plan beyond the captaincy tag. “I love working with Shreyas. I think we’ve both got very similar ideas and mantras on the game,” Ponting said. “And let’s not forget just how good a player he is. It’s not just his captaincy.”
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He then pushed the point further toward batting. “The level of play that we saw from him last year with the bat was probably as good as he’s ever had in an IPL. And I can just see that hunger in his eyes, probably burning more than ever now.”
For Punjab, that is the real value equation at the start of IPL 2026. Iyer is not merely the captain of a reshaped side. He is also the batter and leadership figure around whom that reshaping was designed in the first place. With the Gujarat Titans up first, the season begins where Ponting’s rebuild around Shreyas Iyer aims to achieve what they failed to do the first time: an IPL title.
