34-year-old Shashank Singh has decided to leave Chhattisgarh and join Pondicherry for the upcoming 2026-27 domestic season. He has already taken the No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Chhattisgarh State Cricket Sangh (CSCS) and will play for Pondicherry as a guest player. Mumbai wicketkeeper-batter Prasad Pawar will be the other guest player in the team.
In an interview with a leading publication, Shashank Singh has blamed the CSCS for not supporting him at all. He revealed that last season, he suffered a serious shoulder injury and a fractured finger but the association did not help him during his injury and recovery period. He said the board did not support him in any way during that difficult phase.
His anger grew when his name was not included in the Chhattisgarh Cricket Premier League 2026 and also in the Chhattisgarh squad that went to Bengaluru for a pre-season camp. He claimed that he asked the association for a reason but they gave him no explanation.
He also shared a shocking claim. He was told that he is only interested in playing the IPL and does not want to play domestic cricket for Chhattisgarh. Replying to this, he labeled it as completely false. He pointed out that just last year in February 2025, the BCCI itself named him as India’s best all-rounder in white-ball cricket. He received the very prestigious Lala Amarnath Award for Best All-Rounder in Domestic Limited Overs Competitions for the 2023-24 season.
Talking about his future plans, Shashank Singh said he wants to focus only on white-ball cricket this season and will take a break from red-ball cricket. He said his body still feels fresh and he wants to become a proper all-rounder by bowling his full quota of 4 overs in T20 cricket, both for his new team Pondicherry and for Punjab Kings in the IPL.
Shashank Singh was one of the main reasons for Punjab Kings’ amazing run to the IPL 2025 final where he scored 350 runs at a brilliant strike rate of 153.51. However, his performance in the IPL 2026 was poor, as he could only manage 132 runs in 9 innings.
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