Shreyas Iyer, in his first season in charge of the Punjab Kings, has taken the franchise to only their first playoffs in 11 years. Iyer, who won the championship last year with KKR, would be keen to replicate what MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma have achieved in the past.
Shreyas Iyer has done the unthinkable. Iyer became the first captain in IPL history to be released in the next season after winning the title. The 30-year-old, who was coming off leading Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to their third title, chose not to be retained, reunited with Ricky Ponting, his former coach at the Delhi Capitals and now finds himself on the brink of scripting history. After being named the Punjab Kings skipper, Iyer has led the 2014 finalists from the front, scoring 500-plus runs in the season, while striking at 171 and has taken the team along.
As the fate would have it, Gujarat Titans lost their last couple of games and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) too incurred a huge loss against the Sunrisers Hyderabad to help Punjab Kings have a shot at sealing the top spot, which Iyer and Co with rather aplomb, beating the Mumbai Indians fair and square in their final league stage clash. Punjab and RCB, both finished with 19 points and will lock horns in the first qualifier in the playoffs, but with a better NRR, the Kings finished at the top.
By virtue of the same, Iyer became only the third captain in IPL history to take their team to the top of the points table in the league stage in back-to-back seasons. Rohit Sharma did it in 2019 and 2020 for the Mumbai Indians, while Hardik Pandya replicated it in 2022 and 2023 for the Gujarat Titans. Iyer led the Knight Riders to the top spot last year and now has done the same with the Kings and became the first captain to do the same with different teams in consecutive editions.
| Position | Team | Captain | Year |
| 1 | Mumbai Indians | Rohit Sharma | 2019 |
| 1 | Mumbai Indians | Rohit Sharma | 2020 |
| 1 | Gujarat Titans | Hardik Pandya | 2022 |
| 1 | Gujarat Titans | Hardik Pandya | 2023 |
| 1 | Kolkata Knight Riders | Shreyas Iyer | 2024 |
| 1 | Punjab Kings | Shreyas Iyer | 2025 |
A second consecutive IPL title will most certainly put Iyer in the IPL history books, if he wasn’t already there. The first challenge for the Kings in the playoffs will be RCB, who are also chasing their first title.
