The core six who performed in last year’s final needed a saving from a debutant in their first game versus the Gujarat Titans

Punjab Kings have started their campaign on a winning note, continuing their strong form from 2025, which saw them reach the Indian Premier League (IPL) final. However, a victory in the season opener doesn’t necessarily mean everything is on track with the team. Early in the stage, the Punjab Kings need to quickly fix their core six if they wish to continue their winning ways and reach the playoffs again.

Final vs. first match

Chandigarh: Ahead of the IPL 2026 season, Punjab Kings' batter, Shashank Singh says, "The biggest challenge this time is to repeat last year’s performance, because repeating it is very difficult. We reached the final—I know we didn’t win it—but we must avoid the mistakes we made… pic.twitter.com/rpLPwTP3UZ

— IANS (@ians_india) March 19, 2026

Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Nehal Wadhera, Shashank Singh and Marcus Stoinis were part of the Punjab playing XI that took on the Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the final of the IPL 2025. Despite losing the game, Arya scored 24 runs, Singh scored 26, Wadhera scored 15, and Shashank scored 61. Unfortunately, a similar kind of impact from these players was not seen in the first game.

Prabhsimran Singh’s solo show

🚨 Meet Punjab Kings "Prabhsimran Singh"

- He played 51 Matches in IPL
- Runs - 1306*
- fifties - 8
- Hundred - 1

- He is Better than Shubman Gill.
- A proper hard hitter for PBKS
- First PBKS player to hit 3 sixes in a row to Kagiso Rabbadapic.twitter.com/emPGU12mfA

— manzur shaban (@Manzurshaban123) March 31, 2026

Among the above-mentioned lot, only Prabhsimran Singh scored 37 runs in the first match against the Gujarat Titans, whereas the rest of the players faltered. Iyer made a contribution of 18 runs, but the team’s entire batting line-up struggled against the Titans, which, in the long run, could trouble the northern outfit.

Connolly’s poor stats

Punjab Kings co-owner Preity Zinta took a selfie with Cooper Connolly after his match-winning innings against GT at Mullanpur 🤳😍

📸: IPL#PunjabKings #CooperConnolly #IPL2026 #PBKSvGT #CricketTwitter pic.twitter.com/NpJgeHx6C4

— InsideSport (@InsideSportIND) April 1, 2026

Punjab Kings and their fans celebrated Cooper Connolly’s debut for the team as he made 72 runs in 44 balls that helped Punjab chase down the target. Celebrating his debut is not an issue until you look at his stats in the T20Is. Connolly for Australia has played 11 T20Is so far and has scored merely 28 runs at an average of 4.66. Even in domestic T20s, he has 942 runs in 53 matches at an average of 26.91. These numbers definitely aren’t impressive and make Connolly an unreliable option.

Thanks to bowlers

We are more include to seeing and appreciating batting brilliance but never take a moment and appreciate what bowlers achieve.

Vijaykumar Vyshak has just produced the master class spell of the death over bowling.pic.twitter.com/tbiCy5XQAi

— Sujeet Suman (@sujeetsuman1991) March 31, 2026

Fortunately, what worked in Punjab’s favour were the efforts by Vijaykumar Vyshak and Yuzvendra Chahal, who grabbed three and two wickets, respectively, while keeping the economy below nine despite the majority of IPL venues being flat decks. Even Marco Jensen’s economy of five in 20 overs helped Punjab reduce the pressure on their batters, but will the bowlers be successful every time in containing the opponent’s score to 160, 170 or 180?

Punjab need to continue their winning ways, but the reliance needs to be equally divided between the batting and bowling units, and the core batters need to pick up their game early. Connolly or the bowlers may not be able to play the saviour in every game.