Punjab Kings did not have a lot of purchasing to do at the recent IPL 2026 auction, with only four slots left to be filled with a purse of 11.40 Cr. And they ended up buying Ben Dwarshuis, Cooper Connolly, Pravin Dubey and Vishal Nishad. While they might not appear to be big names, but then they had retained an excellent squad from IPL 2025.
The ones they got rid of were, Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglis, Aaron Hardie, Kuldeep Sen and Kyle Jamieson; Dubey was re-purchased. InsideSport tries to rate PBKS squad ahead of IPL 2026 season.
PBKS Hits at IPL auction 2026
Even though PBKS is well-covered in the pace department, but then with the addition of Dwarshuis, their bench-strength has gotten stronger. In 178 T20s, he has picked up 221 wickets where his economy has been only 8.3. He has 1165 runs to his name at a strike-rate of 141.
On the other hand, Connolly could very well comes in the playing XI. He bats and bowls equally well. In 39 matches so far he has scored 816 runs at an average of 34. To go with that he has 18 wickets to his name. He is more in the mould of Maxwell, and could be a bit more consistent than his Aussie counterpart.
PBKS Flops at IPL auction
As discussed, there wasn’t much for Punjab to do at the IPL 2026 auction. So, there is no real miss from the team at the IPL Auction. If at all, they could have bought Josh Inglis back; but then his availability was the biggest issue. Due to his marriage, he could only play four matches.
PBKS full squad: Mitch Owen, Musheer Khan, Nehal Wadhera, Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya, Arshdeep Singh, Azmatullah Omarzai, Suryansh Shedge, Vishnu Vinod, Yash Thakur, Harnoor Pannu, Harpreet Brar, Lockie Ferguson, Marco Jansen, Marcus Stoinis, Pyla Avinash, Shashank Singh, Shreyas Iyer, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Xavier Bartlett, Yuzvendra Chahal, Ben Dwarshuis (Rs 4.40 Cr), Cooper Connolly (Rs 3 Cr), Pravin Dubey (Rs 30 lakh), Vishal Nishad (Rs 30 lakh).
Punjab Kings Strongest XI
| Player | Role |
|---|---|
| Priyansh Arya | Batter |
| Prabhsimran Singh | Keeper-batter |
| Shreyas Iyer | Batter |
| Marcus Stoinis | All-rounder |
| Mitchell Owen | All-rounder |
| Nehal Wadhera | Batter |
| Shashank Singh | Batter |
| Marco Jansen | All-rounder |
| Arshdeep Singh | Bowler |
| Yuzvendra Chahal | Bowler |
| Lockie Ferguson | Bowler |
| Harpreet Brar | Impact Sub |
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