Punjab Kings

The 2008 tournament got off to a slow start for the Kings XI Punjab, with the team losing their first two games. However, a player of the match performance by Kumar Sangakkara, who scored 94 runs off 56 balls, helped them defeat Mumbai Indians by 66 runs in their third game. Despite the absence of Brett Lee and Simon Katich for parts of the season, the team found its groove, winning nine of its next 10 matches.

They clinched a semi-final berth but suffered a nine-wicket loss to the Chennai Super Kings. Shaun Marsh was the breakout star of the inaugural season. Signed as an uncapped player on 9 April after being overlooked in the auction, he finished as the tournament's first Orange Cap holder.

44, including one century and five half-centuries. In 2009, the tournament moved to South Africa due to security concerns in India. The franchise signed a sponsorship deal with Emirates and sought to bolster its bowling by bidding for Jerome Taylor and Yusuf Abdulla.

However, Taylor was ruled out due to injury before the season began, and the team struggled with the unavailability of key Australian players. Despite a mid-season resurgence, their semi-final hopes were crushed after a final league match loss to Chennai Super Kings, leaving them in 5th place. The 2010 season was the team's most difficult of the early era, as they finished in last position (8th) with only four wins.

A major highlight was their first-ever Super Over victory against Chennai Super Kings; after both teams tied at 136 runs, Juan Theron restricted Chennai to 9 runs in the tie-breaker, which Yuvraj Singh chased down with a boundary off Muttiah Muralitharan. Mahela Jayawardene was the team's leading run-scorer for the season with 472 runs.