Former Indian batter Robin Uthappa said that Shreyas Iyer leading the Punjab Kings (PBKS) to a title would certainly make him the frontrunner to be Team India’s next captain as well. However, PBKS also picked up Iyer for a whopping price of ₹26.75 crore on Day 1 (November 24) of the 2025 IPL auction as well. He also led Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to arguably the most dominant season in IPL history earlier this year. Under Iyer’s captaincy, KKR won nine of their 12 league-stage games before winning their third IPL title.

Speaking on Jio Cinema about the Iyer-PBKS union, Uthappa said: “He is going from a championship-winning team to a team that has not won any titles. That will be a nice challenge for him. If he can go there and win a title, I have no doubt that he is going to be the next Indian captain.”

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Meanwhile, PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting has also opined that Shreyas Iyer would be a great leader should he captain the franchise in the upcoming IPL season as well.

Speaking to Star Sports after Iyer’s signing, Ponting said: “I wanted to work with Shreyas. I’ve worked with him before and he is a great guy and a great player. He’ll be a great leader for our team if we decide to go that way, which I’m pretty sure we probably will. And obviously, he was the championship-winning captain last year. So there are lots of great things about bringing him to Punjab.”