Former RCB coach Sanjay Bangar has returned to his former franchise Punjab Kings ahead of IPL 2024. Sanjay Bangar has been appointed the head of cricket development at Punjab Kings. He was the franchise's assistant coach in 2014 before serving as head coach in 2015 and 2016."It's my privilege to be with the Punjab Kings again," Bangar said in a media release. "We have a good core of players as evidenced by the fact that we have the lowest number of player releases this year. The challenge is to give the squad the best support possible during and after the season to make the team stronger and deliver success."
After his previous stint with the Kings, Bangar continued as the batting coach of the Indian side that reached the semi-final of the 2019 ODI World Cup. He then was appointed the batting consultant of Royal Challengers Bangalore ahead of IPL 2021 before being named their head coach for the next two years. Under Bangar, Kings finished runners-up in 2014 but went on to finish at the bottom of the table in the following two editions. Ahead of the auction for IPL 2024, Kings released only five players, including Tamil Nadu finisher Shahrukh Khan, which freed them of INR 9 crore. They have a purse of INR 29.1 crore for the auction. Many Indian batsmen, including Indian captain Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul and Ajinkya Rahane, have credited Bangar for contributing to their growth. Bangar's contract was not renewed by the BCCI on the back of reports that Bangar was not able to find a suitable no 4 batsman in ODI cricket, a reason for India's loss in the 2019 World Cup, although it was widely debated that it was the job of the selectors and not the job of the batting coach to do so.[17] As compared to previous foreign coaches, Bangar's performance was notable. Indian batsmen under him scored a total of 150 centuries including 89 overseas centuries, across formats
