Team: Punjab Kings (PBKS)
City: Mohali, Punjab
Ground: Inderjit Singh Bindra Stadium, Mohali
IPL Debut: 2008
Number of IPL Titles: 0
Who Are the Punjab Kings?
The Punjab Kings were actually originally called the Kings XI Punjab. The name was recently changed to the Punjab Kings in February 2021 as the franchise looked to “start a fresh” after not being able to win a title after thirteen seasons.
The Punjab Kings were one of the original teams in the IPL, making their debut in the first edition of the IPL in 2008. The team plays its home matches at the Inderjit Singh Bindra Stadium in Mohali (more commonly known as the PCA stadium) which has a total capacity of 38,0000. More recently the franchise have started playing some of their home games in Dharamsala and Indore.
The franchise is jointly owned by the Dabur group’s Mohit Burman (46%), the Wadia group’s Ness Wadia (23%), Bollywood Preity Zinta (23%), and Karan Paul. In the current 2022 IPL they coached by former Indian spin bowler Anil Kumble and captained by Mayank Agarwal.
Overall, across the 14 editions of the IPL, the Punjab Kings have failed to make the impact they would have liked having never won an IPL title. The combination of a lack of success in the tournament and also the smaller size of its geographical region has meant they are not considered as one of the tournaments more popular teams.
The IPL History of Punjab Kings
The Punjab Kings have unfortunately never been able to win an IPL title. They have however made it past the group stages on two occasions, once in the inaugural year of the tournament, in 2008, where they reached the semi-finals, and their best year came all the way back in 2014 where they made it to the final but finished the tournament as runners up.
The 2014 was, by far, the teams most impressive season, where they finished first in the league table standings, won their semi-final versus the Chennai Super Kings (CSK), and when they posted a total of 199 batting first against the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) in the final they looked to be heavy favourites. But KKR managed to complete the highest finals run chase in IPL history leaving Punjab distraught.
Their performance in the 2014 IPL was rewarded with qualification into the now defunct Champions League T20 in 2014. Having gone unbeaten in the group stages, they again qualified for the semi-finals, but unfortunately, on this occasion, they were soundly beaten by IPL rivals CSK.
Since 2014, Punjab have failed to make it past the group stages. They were not able to build upon their impressive year in 2014, as they followed this up with a two bottom of the table finishes managing to only win 7 games in two years. In 2017, they finished fifth, losing their last game of the league season to Rising Pune Supergiant, a win would have meant a top 4 finish and qualification into the semi-finals. Post-2017, they best finish has been of sixth, which they have managed in the last three consecutive seasons.
Who Holds the Punjab Kings Records?
Punjab Kings have consistently had a high turnover of players throughout the years. They have unfortunately struggled to keep hold of their best players and so in comparison their batting and bowling records are not as impressive compared to other teams.
Currently, KL Rahul is one of the biggest names in the IPL. He was part of Punjab Kings from 2018 to 2021 and was one of the teams most impressive players being their all-time leading run scorer with 2,548 runs in only 55 matches at an average of 56.62. In comparison, the Australian Shaun Marsh was the team’s second leading run scorer, making 2,477 runs in 69 innings. KL Rahul also holds the highest individual score of 132 not out in 2020 against the Royal Challengers Bangalore.
Only the bowling front, the Punjab Kings have always had extremely talented local Indian bowlers, with the likes of Mohammed Shami (58 wickets), Axar Patel (61 wickets), and Sandeep Sharma (71 wickets) but it’s the club legend Piyush Chawla who took has taken the most wickets for Punjab with 84 in 87 matches. Young Indian fast bowler Ankit Rajpoot also holds the best bowling figures in an innings taking 5 wickets for 14 runs against Sunrisers Hyderabad in 2018.
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