Former Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has made a bold claim in favor of the Punjab Kings after witnessing their form in this season of the competition. He went on to claim that Kings would have won IPL 2025 instead of RCB, had it not been for Priyansh Arya’s early dismissal with an ecstatic catch from Phil Salt.
Royal Challengers Bengaluru won their first-ever IPL title in 2025 after defeating the Punjab Kings, who had reached the finals for the second time in the history of the competition. The Shreyas Iyer-led side were just 6 runs short of their maiden IPL triumph as well.
The Punjab Kings have picked up from where they had left off last season. Having played across venues in India, the Shreyas Iyer-led side has once again dominated with the bat and is undefeated after the first seven matches in the ongoing season of the competition.
Ravichandran Ashwin backs PBKS openers for their dominance in the IPL
Ravichandran Ashwin, the former Indian spinner, has taken up cricket analytics as a major career as he has turned his YouTube channel, ‘Ash ki Baat,’ into a stunning platform that he has used to unleash raw facts about the game and the players related to it.
On most occasions, he has pointed out talents that have been left rather ignored by the team management or the other analysts and have not been given due credit. Two such players are Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya, the two PBKS openers.
Ravichandran Ashwin opined that though Vaibhav Sooryavanshi and Ayush Mhatre have been largely talked about, so has Shreyas Iyer, since he is an international cricketer with runs; Priyansh and Prabhsimran do deserve a similar kind of appreciation, but have not been discussed lately.
“Had he not been dismissed, RCB would have lost the IPL 2025 final” – Ravichandran Ashwin’s bold claim
Ravichandran Ashwin continued with his praise of Priyansh Arya, claiming that he is a very special cricketer and has proved it over time and again, playing some of the most crucial roles for the Kings. Arya’s top-order starts often help Punjab chase massive totals with ease.
Speaking of the final against RCB in the previous season of the IPL, Ashwin claimed that had it not been for that stunning catch from Phil Salt that dismissed Priyansh Arya, RCB would have not been able to win their maiden title.
“Had he (Phil Salt) not taken that catch to dismiss Priyansh Arya, RCB would have not won the IPL the last season,” said Ravichandran Ashwin.
Arya, who had just started to score and was batting on 24 off just 18 balls, was dismissed off Josh Hazlewood’s bowling, which immediately brought RCB into the game.
Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh are dominating IPL 2026
Every time Punjab Kings have needed their two openers to fire, they have stepped up for the Kings. Not only in yesterday’s game, where the openers scored 116 runs off the first six overs in their mammoth chase of 265 runs, which eventually helped PBKS win the match, but also have they done it on several previous occasions.
While individually these two batters have scored several runs themselves, their partnership in the powerplay has generated a large amount of stability and the energy needed to take an innings eventually into a massive total.
Arya and Singh have been unstoppable this season, and the bowlers have not seemed to have a response to dismiss them early so far in this edition of the competition, making the Punjab Kings an undefeated team at the top of that points table.
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