Harpreet Brar: The Understated Spinner Shaping Punjab Kings' Future
Harpreet Brar has watched an entire era of Punjab Kings cricket drift past from uncomfortably close quarters.
Seven seasons. One rebrand. Seven captains. A revolving door of overseas stars and domestic hopefuls. One constant: a tall left-arm spinner from Moga who rarely makes a fuss, rarely makes a headline, but quietly tops a list that should matter more than it does.
Since his IPL debut in 2019, no PBKS spinner has taken more wickets than Harpreet Brar.
And yet, he has completed only two full seasons.
The man remembered for one spell
For many, his IPL story is reduced to a single, unforgettable night. RCB, 2021. Still a relatively anonymous name, Brar ripped through the league’s royalty in the space of a few minutes: Virat Kohli and Glenn Maxwell off consecutive balls, AB de Villiers soon after. A triple-strike that felt like a career launch.
Two years into the league, he had floored three of its biggest giants.
It has followed him ever since. He laughs now that the clip never really goes away. He’s removed Maxwell three more times, Kohli once more. The victims’ list stretches from Rohit Sharma to uncapped batters like Vaibhav Sooryavanshi – a scrapbook of the IPL’s who’s who.
For Brar, though, one name still sits apart.
“After Virat paaji, there’s no batsman whose aura is such that their wicket can be remembered,” he tells Cricbuzz. But there is one box he hasn’t ticked: Shubman Gill. “I would definitely like to take Gill’s wicket in my career,” he says, half-smiling, half-resigned. “But for the last 3-4 years, whenever there’s a match against him, I am not playing.”
That last line lands harder than he perhaps intends. It has become the story of his last two IPL seasons.
A specialist in a league that doesn’t quite know what to do with him
Across IPL 2026, Brar appeared twice. Once in April, once in May. That was it.
The numbers were solid in a season where bat dominated almost every night. Against Rajasthan Royals, he went 0 for 25 in four overs in a 222 vs 228 run-fest. Against RCB, he took 2 for 35, removing Jacob Bethell and Devdutt Padikkal in a game where Punjab made 222 and still lost.
On paper, those are the kind of spells that should earn a bowler more opportunities, not fewer. On grass, under the new rules, the equation is messier.
The Impact Player rule has quietly rewritten his job description. In the pre-Impact era, Brar was a spinner who could bat at No.7, offering balance and depth. Now, his batting almost doesn’t count. He’s a matchup piece – picked or dropped depending on conditions, opposition line-up, and how much batting the team wants to stack.
On flat pitches, PBKS often prefer an extra batter or a quick. Brar slides out of the XI.
“Sir, main na sirf kaam hi kar sakta hu (I can only work on things),” he says when asked about his batting. The frustration is measured, not explosive. “Because 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.”
If he plays, only Arshdeep Singh and Yuzvendra Chahal are scheduled after him. Marco Jansen can bat. If Azmatullah Omarzai plays, he goes above Brar too. The safety net he once provided has been moved up the order.
The rule, in his eyes, has also moved him out of games.
“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 bluntly. “If bowling comes, I will be in the team. If the total is more, the pacer plays. This is how it is.”
It is not a theoretical gripe. It is his reality.
A rule under fire, and a player stuck in the middle
The Impact Player clause came under scrutiny before the 2026 season at a Captains’ Meeting. Several senior players have gone public with their concerns. Franchises will be asked for formal feedback. For now, indications are that the rule will remain for at least one more year.
Brar doesn’t dress it up.
“Personally, Impact Player is not good for me because I want to play all games,” he repeats. “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.”
The numbers around him underline the irony. PBKS leaned heavily on pace in 2026. They bowled the lowest percentage of spin in the league – just 18.7% of their overs – and took the fewest wickets with spin: 14 all season. It was their joint-lowest return for a campaign.
When they reached the final in 2014 and 2025, spin played a central role: 33 and 32 wickets respectively. The lesson is obvious. The selection patterns haven’t always followed it.
Behind that sits another quiet truth. Brar is not just an IPL specialist waiting for a call. Since 2023, no spinner has taken more wickets than him in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Last season, he stepped into the Ranji Trophy for the first time and promptly shed the “white-ball-only” tag.
Yet the lack of IPL game time has had a knock-on effect. He has not played any professional cricket since May.
Off-season graft and honest conversations
Last month, PBKS held an off-season camp. Six players attended. Brar was one of them, working closely with the strength and conditioning and assistant coaches.
“I worked on plenty of things in detail,” he says. “How can I get better… how can I bowl better?”
The questions aren’t abstract. They come from the sting of being dropped after doing a job.
“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),” he admits. “But as a cricketer, team always comes first, which is our motto. 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 leans heavily on the brains trust in the dressing room. Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting, he says, are “very similar kinds of people. And they are very practical people. If I have a question in mind, I will go and ask them. They will always answer it in the right manner.”
Brar seeks them out when they are alone, away from the noise, to ask about their own careers, their dips, their non-selections. He also asks, directly, what he must do to force his way back into the XI.
For a player stuck on the fringes, clarity is currency.
Chasing cricket across continents
The search for game time doesn’t stop with franchise camps. Brar goes looking for overs wherever he can find them.
His wife is a practising doctor in the United Kingdom, so the couple often spend time there after the IPL. For most players, that stretch might be pure holiday. For Brar, it becomes a second, quieter season.
This year, he turned out in club cricket in England, squeezing in matches on weekends.
“If there’s a chance to play cricket, he’ll grab it,” is how his actions read. “Even when you go for some free time after the IPL, say for a vacation… even if matches are on the weekend, I want to play and stay associated with the game whenever I have free time,” he says.
Last year, that hunger took him even closer to the India dressing room than he might have imagined. During England’s tour, he happened to be in Birmingham when the national team was training. He had Shubman Gill’s number. He had a window. So he sent a message.
“He said, ‘Yes, you can come,’” Brar recalls. Gill himself skipped that optional session, but Brar turned up and trained with the rest of the squad. “I practiced with the team and really liked it. Also, it’s always great to meet your own people on foreign soil!”
For a player who has never been part of an India squad, it was a small but significant taste of the environment he wants to inhabit.
Red ball, fresh chapter
Back home now, Brar is turning out in the Punjab state T20 league, returning to the white-ball routines that made his name. The real test of his year, though, lies in the longer format.
Later this season comes his second Ranji Trophy campaign, a chance to prove – quietly, steadily – that he is more than a T20 matchup option. In the Impact Player era, being pigeonholed as a specialist T20 spinner can be a dead end. Red-ball cricket offers another door.
He did more than just knock on it in his debut Ranji season in 2025-26. He finished with 23 wickets at 21.26, the highest tally for Punjab. Among the wickets was a standout moment: KL Rahul beaten by a delivery that tore past his defence and crashed into middle stump. For a bowler trying to build a red-ball reputation, that is the kind of dismissal that lingers in selectors’ minds.
“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.”
Seven seasons into his IPL journey, with one famous spell and a pile of quiet numbers behind him, Harpreet Brar stands at a crossroads shaped by a rule he did not ask for and a role that keeps shifting beneath his feet.
Whether the league moves back towards specialists, whether Punjab Kings rediscover the value of spin, whether red-ball performances can haul a white-ball bowler into a different conversation – those are questions that will define what comes next.
Brar, for his part, has made his stance clear: if there’s a game to be played, anywhere, in any format, he intends to be bowling in it, not watching from the dugout.
