Heading into Punjab Kings' Monday's IPL 2026 clash against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens, the conversation around India's premier T20 left-arm seamer Arshdeep Singh is not just about the record that awaits him. It is also about a form slump that nobody quite saw coming.

The history Arshdeep Singh is about to make

Arshdeep Singh has been with PBKS since his debut in 2019 and across 83 innings he has taken 97 wickets at an average of 27.35. No bowler has ever reached 100 wickets for this franchise, not Piyush Chawla who got to 84, not Sandeep Sharma who reached 73, not Axar Patel or Mohammed Shami.

Arshdeep Singh is three away and the fact that he is closing in on this milestone in his eighth consecutive season for the same franchise makes it all the more meaningful.

His best season for PBKS came in 2025 when he took 21 wickets in 16 innings at an average of 24.66, the kind of form that established him not just as Punjab's best bowler but as one of the best in the entire tournament. Against KKR specifically, Arshdeep Singh record is solid, 11 wickets from 11 matches at an average of 24.73 with a best of 3 for 19.

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The form concern that clouds milestone ahead of KKR vs PBKS match

Here is where the picture becomes complicated. Arshdeep Singh is yet to take a wicket in IPL 2026 after two games against Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings, and the dry spell actually extends further back than that.

Across his last five T20 matches, Arshdeep Singh has managed just one wicket, a dismissal that came against England in the T20 World Cup semifinal while conceding 51 runs in the same spell. For a bowler of his quality and reputation that is a worrying run of numbers and one that PBKS will be monitoring closely even if the wins have kept coming around him.

The early swing that makes him so dangerous, the ability to hit the seam in the powerplay and nail the yorker at the death ,none of it has quite clicked yet this season.

Three wickets from Eden Gardens on Monday would not only put him in the history books, it would go a long way toward silencing the questions about his form that are beginning to grow louder with each wicketless game.