Introduction

The Rising Pune Supergiant had two years to exist. In those two years, they changed captains mid-season, hired and fired coaching staff, came within one run of winning the IPL title, and provided cricket with some of the best raw material for drama that the competition has ever produced. They played in only 2 IPL seasons and reached the final in both. They never won the tournament. And then they were gone — replaced by CSK returning from their two-year ban, dissolved as if they had never existed. The Supergiant story is the strangest, most compressed franchise story in IPL history.

The Creation — Filling CSK’s Spot During the Ban

When CSK were suspended following the franchise’s involvement in the 2013 betting scandal investigations, the BCCI needed to fill their spot in the competition with a temporary franchise. Rising Pune Supergiant (and Gujarat Lions) were created for the 2016 and 2017 seasons. Pune were immediately given a squad that included MS Dhoni — CSK’s captain and most important player — along with Steve Smith, AB de Villiers (briefly), and Ravichandran Ashwin. It was a squad of extraordinary quality for a temporary franchise. The problem was that having Dhoni and Smith in the same squad immediately raised a fundamental question: who was actually in charge?

The Captaincy Drama — Smith Takes Over From Dhoni

In 2016, Dhoni captained Pune. The results were inconsistent, and the team finished fourth. In an extraordinary and controversial decision, the Supergiant management removed Dhoni as captain for the 2017 season and gave the captaincy to Steve Smith — a move that was seen as deeply disrespectful to Dhoni by many Indian cricket supporters. Smith, for his part, was brilliant. He led the team intelligently, batted at his best, and Pune finished second in 2017 — making the final where they lost to Mumbai Indians by just 1 run. Had that final gone differently, Steve Smith would have been the captain of an IPL-winning franchise at the peak of his career.

The 1-Run Final and the Disappearance

The 2017 IPL final between Rising Pune Supergiant and Mumbai Indians is one of the great finals in IPL history. Pune needed 2 runs off the last ball to win with 9 wickets down — they got 1. Mumbai won by 1 run. Manoj Tiwary was the non-striker, unable to get on strike for the final delivery. Krunal Pandya bowled an extraordinary final ball. The margin was the smallest possible in cricket. Had any of fifty micro-decisions across that match gone differently, Pune would have been IPL champions. Two weeks after that final, Rising Pune Supergiant ceased to exist — disbanded as CSK returned to the competition. They won nothing. They produced everything. They are gone, and they will not return.

DID YOU KNOW?  Rising Pune Supergiant are one of only three IPL franchises to reach the final in consecutive seasons. They are the only franchise to reach consecutive finals and win none of them. They are also the only franchise in IPL history to lose a final by a margin of 1 run.

Final Verdict  Rising Pune Supergiant had two seasons, two finals, one margin of defeat that was as small as cricket allows, and zero titles. Their story is the IPL’s most intensely compressed drama — every narrative element that a franchise story can contain, squeezed into 24 months and then closed forever.