With nine loses and five victories, Punjab Kings finished second from the bottom of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024, capping a miserable season.
There was little noteworthy about the Kings except from one match against the eventual winners, the Kolkata Knight Riders, where they easily defeated a target of 262 with eight wickets remaining and ten balls remaining.
The Punjab Kings missed the playoffs for the tenth year in a row due to a number of injuries and setup instability. The team didn’t even come close to paying off for the amount of money they invested in it.
By keeping just Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh, the Kings cleaned their decks well in front of the IPL 2025 auction. Their INR 110.5 crore purse was sufficient to intimidate both their rivals and a player like Rishabh Pant, who was cut loose by the Delhi Capitals.
But by acquiring pacer Arshdeep Singh back and shelling out a fortune for Shreyas Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Marcus Stoinis, and Marco Jansen, they made wise acquisitions. Additionally, they signed Josh Inglis, Lockie Ferguson, and Glenn Maxwell, which is encouraging.
But for the real season to be successful, the optimism following the auction just requires a few things. These three things must be successful for Punjab Kings.
Top-order batting must be effective
The Kings finished the season with the lowest average of 27.62 in the first 10 overs, the lowest for any team in the 2024 Indian Premier League, even though they pulled off an incredible chase against KKR.
Even worse was their top five batting average of 25.2; players like Liam Livingstone, Rilee Rossow, and Jonny Bairstow all fell short of 300 runs for the tournament. Additionally, they lost the most wickets of any team during the seasonโ42โin the first half of the innings.
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