Since the IPL 2022, the tournament featured 10 teams, making getting into the playoffs – finishing in the top 4 – and even tougher task than it had been when the tournament had 8 teams.
Two new teams added to the competition are Lucknow Super Giants and Gujarat Titans. Both the new franchises have shown consistency in the league phase and qualified for the playoffs in both Indian Premier League 2022 and Indian Premier League 2023 season with Hardik Pandya’s Gujarat Titans even going on to win the Indian Premier League 2022 trophy, becoming the first teams since Rajasthan Royals in 2008 to win the Indian Premier League on its debut season.
And what is an interesting, and also quite shocking fact is that while both these teams have reached the playoffs twice in two seasons, Punjab Kings have reached the playoffs twice in 16 seasons!
Which team has qualified for IPL playoffs the least amount of times?
The Punjab Kings have reached the playoffs/semis only twice in 16 seasons – which is the least amount of times of the original teams. Even LSG and GT have qualified for playoffs twice in only two seasons.
In the inaugural Indian Premier League season in 2008, Yuvraj Singh led then Kings XI Punjab to the semi-finals, where they lost to CSK. Their next finish in the top 4 was in 2014 when Australian George Bailey captained Punjab to the final, but they lost it to KKR.
Since 2014, Punjab, who have changed a spate of captains and coaches and even their franchise name, has not finished in the top 4 in the Indian Premier League, They finished 6th in each of the four seasons from 2019 to 2022 and in 2023, the finished at the 8th spot.
The instability in the Punjab decision-making can be reflected from the fact that 15 different men have capptained the Punjab team in 16 IPL seasons.
List of captains of Punjab Kings in the IPL:
Yuvraj Singh (2008-2009), Kumar Sangakkara (2010), Mahela Jayawardene (2010), Adam Gilchrist (2011-2013), David Hussey (2012-2013), George Bailey (2014-2015), Virender Sehwag (2015), David Miller (2016), Murali Vijay (2016), Glenn Maxwell (2017), Ravichandran Ashwin (2018-2019), KL Rahul (2020-2021), Mayank Agarwal (2021-2022), Shikhar Dhawan (2022-2023), Sam Curran (2023).
