Shreyas Iyer or Rishabh Pant - who should PBKS target as their captain at IPL 2025 Auction?
Three Indian captains from IPL 2024 -- Shreyas Iyer of Kolkata Knight Riders, Rishabh Pant of Delhi Capitals, and KL Rahul of Lucknow Super Giants -- will be available at the IPL 2025 auction with the same base price of ₹2 crore.
Punjab Kings (PBKS), going into yet another overhaul, are the only franchise with perhaps enough budget -- ₹110.5 crore -- to sign all three of them and still manage to build a decent squad. But as they'd all have captaincy ambitions, the best idea would be to perhaps go after one and do so with research and conviction.
Rahul has a bad history with the PBKS which should make his return unlikely. Shreyas and Pant could be equally enticing choices for the new head coach Ricky Ponting, who worked with both of them at Delhi Capitals (DC). With Shreyas, he took DC to their first-ever final and with Pant to their first table-top league finish.
Both players will bring different advantages and disadvantages to the franchise so below, we make a case for each of Shreyas and Pant for DC's captaincy.
Shreyas Iyer
Well, winning the title is a compelling case in itself, isn't it?
It's difficult to say whether KKR would have won IPL 2024 if Shreyas wasn't the captain but he was quite good in some things. His on-field decisions were without any basic errors, his media messaging was consistent, the team environment looked good (from the outside) and he batted well with the extra responsibility.
That's as good as it gets for captains. Shreyas was the most experienced captain in IPL 2024 and is now the most proven. He took over DC in the middle of a season when Gautam Gambhir stepped down after some poor performances and by 2020, Ponting and he built one of the best sides to not win an IPL title.
In fact, it was this solid base that Pant took over in 2021 when Shreyas was injured for the first half of the season. The latter came back in the second half but DC stuck with Pant as the captain and lost both playoffs after finishing top of the table.
Shreyas isn't as big a star as Pant in Indian cricket yet, but he brings solidity and strength that can be a foundation of any team. At PBKS, his job would be quite similar to KKR where they built for three seasons (although he missed one of them due to injury) and the team's potency peaked in the final year, on and off the field.
Moreover, Pant (and Rahul) being an Indian wicketkeeper-batter in addition to a captaincy option might make him a more premium pick than Shreyas, which could allow PBKS to get their man for cheaper and use the funds elsewhere.
Rishabh Pant
As a captain, Pant doesn't have much over Shreyas. But here, PBKS and Ponting would have to ask themselves: is captaincy that big a deal in T20s?
Tactics are made in the dressing room by the coach, his staff and a big data-analysis team with the captain's input and they can communicate that even during the game. The captain's role is often limited to not buckling and making wrong decisions under pressure and being a good support for his players off the field.
There's nothing to suggest that Pant can't do that. At DC, like Shreyas at KKR, Pant's captaincy was as good as the team. The squad had a ton of issues with its balance, batting depth and bowling quality in key moments.
PBKS bringing in Pant would be a captaincy gamble but not a batting one. Shreyas' IPL 2024 numbers were quite good but still, his career strike rate in the tournament is just 127.47. Pant, on the other hand, has over 100 more runs than Shreyas in an almost equal number of matches with a strike rate of 148.93.
Pant is unequivocally the better T20 batter between the two. He has had some issues in recent seasons, too, but his match-winning ability was on show at the 2024 T20 World Cup and Ponting will back himself to help him make the necessary tweaks before the first match if he signs.
Shreyas' batting issues were evident last season. The Mumbaikar often came to bat ahead of Rinku Singh and Ramandeep Singh even in the death overs, which slowed down the momentum built up by the top order because of his tendency of taking a few balls before getting the big shots away.
With a sure-shot position at number three or four, Pant and PBKS should not have those issues. Moreover, this time, instead of taking over a Shreyas-Ponting team, Pant can be the leader of a new-look side, built by the coach from scratch and can develop it into his vision. Who knows, it might bring out the best of his leadership too.