Harpreet Brar: The Constant in Punjab Kings' IPL Journey

Harpreet Brar has lived through just about every version of Punjab Kings.

He has seen a rebrand, seven captains, endless reshuffles, and the same old hunt for a first IPL title. Through all that churn, one thing has barely moved: a tall left-arm spinner from Moga, quietly operating on the fringes, rarely headline material, almost always reliable.

Seven seasons in, only two of them have been full campaigns. Yet no PBKS spinner has taken more wickets than Brar since his debut in 2019. In a franchise defined by flux, he has become the unlikely constant.

The night that changed everything

For many, Harpreet Brar is still that guy from one unforgettable evening.

Two years into his IPL career, still largely anonymous, he walked into a game against Royal Challengers Bangalore and ripped through a modern trinity: Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell, AB de Villiers. Kohli and Maxwell in successive balls, de Villiers soon after. A spell that turned him from squad filler into cult figure.

The clip hasn’t stopped following him.

“Yes, they asked me in another interview ten minutes ago,” he laughs when it comes up yet again. Since then, he has dismissed Maxwell three more times and Kohli once more in the IPL. His list of scalps runs deep: Rohit Sharma, rising Indian stars, overseas pros, domestic hopefuls. A spread that tells you he doesn’t pick and choose.

But one name still eludes him.

“After Virat paaji, there’s no batsman whose aura is such that their wicket can be remembered,” he tells Cricbuzz. “But still, I haven’t yet dismissed Shubman Gill in the IPL. Abhishek (Sharma), Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, (Yashasvi) Jaiswal… mostly everyone else.

“I would definitely like to take Gill’s wicket in my career,” he adds. “But for the last 3-4 years, whenever there’s a match against him, I am not playing.”

That line lands heavier than it first sounds. Because it’s not really about Gill. It’s about not playing at all.

A bowler stuck in the Impact era

The last two seasons have left Brar spending more time on the bench than with the ball in his hand. In IPL 2026, he appeared just twice: once in April, once in May.

In one game, he sent down four overs for 0 for 25 in a 222 vs 228 run-fest against Rajasthan Royals. In the other, he took 2 for 35 against RCB, removing Jacob Bethell and Devdutt Padikkal in a match where only four wickets fell in a total of 222.

In a season where bowlers were routinely flogged, those are the sort of outings that usually buy you more games. For someone with his IPL record, they should have. They didn’t.

The reason sits squarely in the rulebook.

In the old structure, Brar was the kind of cricketer every T20 captain liked having: a frontline spinner who could bat at No.7, lengthening the order and balancing the XI. Since the Impact Player rule came in, that hybrid value has been stripped away. His batting has almost no role. He’s no longer a near-automatic pick; he’s a matchup option.

On flat pitches, teams chase extra batting or another quick. The all-rounder label loses weight when one of your disciplines can be swapped out mid-game.

“Sir, main na sirf kaam hi kar sakta hu (I can only work on things),” he says when asked about his batting work. The frustration is clear, the acceptance even clearer.

“You know what, the way cricket is going on now, there is the Impact Player (rule), because of which I have gone down one spot further (in the batting order). If I play, there’s only Arshdeep (Singh) and Yuzipaaji (Chahal) after me. Because Marco Jansen also bats. Even if Azmatullah (Omarzai) plays, he will go above me.

“But in the future, whenever the Impact Player rule stops, and I wish it happens… because if our batting comes first, I will not be in the team,” he explains. “If bowling comes, I will be in the team. If the total is more, the pacer plays. This is how it is.”

He doesn’t dress it up. No complaints about luck, no blame on the franchise. Just a blunt reading of where he stands in a tactical arms race.

The league, though, is not blind to the backlash. The Impact Player clause surfaced at a Captains’ Meeting before the 2026 season. Several senior players have spoken against it. Franchises will formally feed back on the rule, even as signs suggest it will stay for at least one more year.

“Personally, Impact Player is not good for me because I want to play all games,” Brar says. “Every player wants to play more. So yeah, I have been working on my batting – I have been doing that for eight years. But I am not getting enough chances.”

A spinner in a pace-first team

The Impact rule is only one part of the story. The other is Punjab’s own approach.

PBKS leaned heavily on pace in 2026. No team bowled a lower percentage of spin: just 18.7% of their overs. No team took fewer wickets with spin: 14. For the franchise, that’s joint-lowest in a season.

The irony is brutal. The two years they went deepest – the finals in 2014 and 2025 – their spinners delivered their highest share of wickets: 33% and 32% respectively. When Punjab have gone far, spin has gone with them. This year, it barely got a look-in.

Brar’s reputation outside the IPL tells a different story. Since 2023, no spinner has taken more wickets in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Last season, he finally broke through the white-ball tag by turning out in the Ranji Trophy for the first time.

Yet the lack of IPL time has a domino effect. He hasn’t played any professional cricket since May.

Work in the shadows

Last month, PBKS ran an off-season camp. Six players turned up. Harpreet Brar was one of them, working closely with the strength and conditioning team and assistant coaches, searching for marginal gains while the rest of the league watched from home.

“I worked on plenty of things in detail,” he says. “How can I get better… how can I bowl better?”

The hurt of non-selection is never far away.

“When you do well for your team, and suddenly, you are not in the first XI for the next game. Dukh lagta hai (it hurts) but as a cricketer, team always comes first, which is our motto,” he says. “We must go as per the demands of the team. But it doesn't mean that if I am not playing, I’ll just sit and feel low.”

He has found sounding boards in the PBKS think-tank too. Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting, he says, are cut from a similar cloth.

“They are very similar kinds of people. And they are very practical people,” Brar says. “If I have a question in mind, I will go and ask them. They will always answer it in the right manner.”

He makes it a point to catch Iyer and Ponting when they’re on their own, away from the noise, to ask about their careers, their failures, their selection battles. Those chats also open the door to honest conversations about his own omission – and what he needs to do to force his way back.

Chasing cricket, wherever it is

Game time has become a hunt. If it’s not coming in India, Brar looks elsewhere.

His wife works as a doctor in the United Kingdom, so the couple spends time there after the IPL. For most players, that’s pure off-season. For Brar, it’s a chance to find a ball and a game.

This year, he turned out in club cricket in the UK, slotting weekend matches into what was supposed to be a break.

“Even when you go for some free time after the IPL, say for a vacation,” he says, the instinct doesn’t switch off. “Even if matches are on the weekend, I want to play and stay associated with the game whenever I have free time.”

Last year, that same restlessness nudged him close to the India Test team.

During England’s tour, Brar happened to be in Birmingham when the national side were training. He didn’t wait for an invitation. He picked up his phone and messaged India captain Shubman Gill, asking if he could join the session.

“He said, ‘Yes, you can come,’” Brar recalls. “So, I managed to practice with the team. I think Shubman himself didn't come that day. It was optional practice. But I practiced with the rest and really liked it. Also, it’s always great to meet your own people on foreign soil!”

A red-ball road opening up

For now, he is back in Punjab colours, playing the state T20 league, slipping easily back into the white-ball habits that built his name. The bigger test, though, lies a little further down the calendar.

His second Ranji Trophy season looms – a genuine chance to shift the narrative of his career.

The first one, in 2025/26, was quietly outstanding. Twenty-three wickets at 21.26, the highest haul by any Punjab bowler. He didn’t just run through lower orders; he picked off big names too. KL Rahul, for instance, was beaten by a delivery that ripped past his defence and crashed into middle stump – the kind of ball that sticks in a batter’s mind for years.

That red-ball return has stirred a deeper ambition.

“Personally, I feel I can play Test cricket for India,” Brar says. “And for that, I am willing to put in all the hard work needed and will even exceed that in the future.”

In an IPL era shaped by substitutions and specialists, Harpreet Brar is trying to do something unfashionable: become too complete, too persistent, too versatile to ignore. The Impact Player rule may decide his minutes in T20s for now, but the longer format offers a different kind of selection – one that tends to reward those who keep turning up, season after season, spell after spell.

If he gets that India cap in whites before he finally dismisses Shubman Gill in the IPL, it would be a twist even he might not have scripted.