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Every year without fail, the IPL captains' photoshoot drops and fans spend about five minutes appreciating it before spending the next five hours dissecting who is standing where and what it means.

This year is no different, except the theory doing the rounds right now is so eerily consistent that it has gone from a fun fan observation to something that genuinely makes you stop and think.

Hardik Pandya is at the centre of it all, not for anything he has done on the field, but for where he stands in a photograph. And based on what has happened the last three years running, the 2026 IPL title race may have already been decided by a camera crew and a seating arrangement.

IPL 2026: The Hardik Pandya pattern that nobody can explain

It began in 2023 and nobody really noticed it at the time. Then 2024 happened and a few people raised an eyebrow. By the time 2025 came around and the same thing occurred again, the internet had fully lost its mind.

Three years in a row, without exception, the captain standing directly next to Hardik Pandya in the official IPL captains' photoshoot has gone on to lift the trophy at the end of the season. MS Dhoni stood to Hardik's left in 2023 and CSK won the title.

Shreyas Iyer stood to his right in 2024 and KKR went on to win their third championship. Rajat Patidar stood next to him in 2025 and led RCB to their first ever IPL title, one of the most emotional moments the tournament has ever produced.

Three different captains, three different teams, three consecutive years, all won simply by occupying the space next to Hardik Pandya in a photoshoot.

The cruel irony of course is that Hardik himself has absolutely nothing to show for any of it, with Mumbai Indians finishing a miserable tenth in 2024 and only scraping through to Qualifier 2 in 2025. He has somehow become the most reliable kingmaker in IPL history without ever being the king himself, and the fans have absolutely not let him forget it.

So who is standing next in 2026

In the official 2026 captains' photoshoot, Hardik is flanked by Ajinkya Rahane of Kolkata Knight Riders on one side and Ishan Kishan of Sunrisers Hyderabad on the other.

That is it.

Those are your two candidates if the trend holds for a fourth consecutive year and at this point dismissing it feels almost brave.

Rahane is leading a revamped KKR side that spent heavily at the auction and boasts a squad that on paper looks frighteningly complete. Cameron Green has already announced himself in pre-season with a stunning 20-ball fifty in a practice match, signalling that he is ready to deliver on the massive INR 25.20 crore price tag KKR paid for him.

Ishan Kishan on the other hand is an entirely different and fascinating subplot, he is only in this photoshoot because Pat Cummins is sitting in a physio's room somewhere with a back injury. Kishan is the stand-in captain, which means he accidentally walked into the golden zone of the photoshoot without even being the designated leader of his franchise.

If SRH end up winning the title with Kishan leading them, it would be one of the greatest accidental IPL stories ever told.

Also READ: IPL 2026 full schedule announced; 50 matches across 12 venues in phase 2

Why they look like the ones to beat in IPL 2026

If you haev to pick between the two sides currently occupying the golden zone, KKR make a genuinely compelling case and not just because of where Rahane is standing in a photograph.

His profile in this scenario is remarkably similar to MS Dhoni's in 2023, a seasoned, composed, experienced Indian captain who does not need to be the most explosive player in the room to get the very best out of those around him.

The squad KKR have built this season has real depth across every department and crucially does not rely on one or two match winners to bail them out, which is exactly how championship teams are constructed.

And here is the stat that will really make your head spin, if KKR win in 2026, it will be the first time in IPL history that three completely different captains won the title in three consecutive years simply by standing next to Hardik Pandya in a pre-season photograph.

Shreyas Iyer did it in 2024, Rajat Patidar did it in 2025, and Ajinkya Rahane could complete the most bizarre hat-trick in cricket history in 2026. At some point you have to stop calling it a coincidence.

The Hardik curse that just will not break

The real tragedy in all of this, if you can call it that, belongs to Hardik Pandya himself. Since 2023 he has stood at the centre of every captains' photoshoot, and every single time the trophy has ended up with someone standing next to him rather than with him.

Hardik Pandya is the constant in the equation, the one fixed point around which champions are made, and yet he remains the only captain in that photograph who has never benefited from it. Mumbai Indians will be desperate to break that cycle in 2026 and finally give Hardik Pandya the moment he has been waiting for.

But if history, and a very strange, very specific, very hard to argue with photoshoot theory, is anything to go by, the IPL trophy on June 1st is heading to either Kolkata or Hyderabad. And somewhere in the Mumbai Indians dressing room, Hardik Pandya is probably trying very hard not to think about any of this.