Gujarat Titans have formally opened their pre-season build-up for IPL 2026. Chief Operating Officer Colonel Arvinder Singh confirmed the franchise has already run one training camp in January, with a second four-to-five-day camp starting on February 16.

"Like every year, our preparations are on in full swing. We've already had one camp in January, and our next camp begins on February 16. We have 12 or 13 players available, so they will be undergoing the grind for four or five days under the coaching staff," Singh said in comments carried by ANI.

Singh placed the February block at the front end of a longer ramp into the new season. The full pre-season is expected to intensify roughly 12 to 15 days before the IPL opener, which he confirmed is scheduled for March 26.

What Singh said about the February block

Singh framed the camp window in straightforward operational terms. The early-February camp is short, sharp and built around the dozen-or-so players who are already off national duty or have finished their domestic commitments.

The four-to-five-day block is designed to re-establish the franchise's training rhythms before the India contingent returns. Gujarat Titans' preferred cycle, by Singh's account, is to layer in fitness, skills and tactical sessions in roughly that order, with conditioning volumes scaled to how much match cricket each player has played in recent weeks.

The India contingent and the gap Singh is working around

Singh did not name individual players in the February camp, but he made the squad maths explicit. With India contracted players in and out of white-ball duty through February, the early camp is necessarily a smaller group. The fuller pre-season ramp — the one that Singh says "will start anywhere around 12 to 15 days before the start of the IPL" — is where the coaching staff expects to have the full squad in one place.

That timing matters for fantasy cricket players too. Captain pick windows, salary cap value, and differential ceiling decisions all become more reliable once franchises move into match-simulation work in the final two weeks before the season. Until then, form reads are anchored on domestic and India cricket data.

For Gujarat Titans specifically, the squad churn through January and February is shaped by India commitments at home and abroad. Several senior India players were either in the Test squad against England or were rotating through white-ball series windows in the same stretch. Singh's framing implies the franchise has built its pre-season plan around that calendar rather than against it, with the February camp acting as a checkpoint rather than a full dress rehearsal.

Singh on Shubman Gill and the ODI captaincy question

In the same set of remarks, Singh weighed in on the wider debate around India captain Shubman Gill's form. He described Gill's recent dip in Twenty20 Internationals as a "hiccup" rather than a structural problem, and pushed back on what he called early judgments on Gill's leadership credentials in the 50-over format.

Singh pointed to Gill's first series as Test captain in England — a 2-2 draw in which Gill scored 754 runs including four centuries — as evidence the player can shoulder captaincy responsibility under pressure.

"Everybody was talking about, you know, how weak the team is and how England is going to crush us, but you saw what the result was. I am sure you would agree that his captaincy played a big role in, you know, the series being drawn," Singh told ANI.

Singh argued the more important yardstick for a captain is the respect he commands inside the dressing room, not the headline numbers from any single format.

The Gill defence matters beyond IPL headlines. Gujarat Titans named Gill their long-term captain going into IPL 2025, and any sustained ODI criticism of his form has a direct read-through to franchise planning. Singh's public backing lines up with the franchise's stated continuity around the role.

Singh's language — "very, very early days," "give him more time," "respect of his contemporaries" — frames the captaincy conversation as a dressing-room question first and a numbers question second. That is a deliberate contrast with the commentary cycle around India's white-ball form, which has leaned heavily on scoreboard output and win-loss records in the short format.

Read against the franchise timeline, the message is also a signal to the IPL auction and retention table. Gujarat Titans' planning for IPL 2026 has been built with Gill at the top of the order and at the toss. Anything that unsettles that picture at the India level filters quickly into fantasy captain markets for the early matches of the new season.

What to watch before IPL 2026 opens

Three franchise-side signals are worth tracking over the next four weeks.

Camp two attendance. Singh has put a 12-to-13-player floor on the early-February camp. If the actual number lands closer to 15, it suggests more white-ball India players than expected are being released early for franchise work. If it lands closer to 10, expect a more cautious ramp with senior players integrated later.

Net-session visibility. Titans have historically posted short net clips during pre-season blocks. The most useful ones this cycle will be match-up specific — pace vs left-handers, spin in middle-overs — rather than showcase hitting.

Fitness bulletins. With the IPL opener six weeks away and the BCCI expected to publish the first phase of the IPL 2026 schedule in mid-March, any load management call on senior players will move captain pick markets sharply. Watch the franchise's own injury and availability channels before the final 12-15 day pre-season block begins.

Match-up hints from the nets. Gujarat Titans have used pre-season camps in past years to trial specific plans against the teams they expect to face in the opening fortnight. Net footage that highlights left-arm spin match-ups or short-ball preparation for a specific batting order is usually a clue, not a coincidence. The franchise has also been more visible in posting structured training clips on its own channels than most other IPL sides in recent seasons.

What the February 16 start date tells us

The February 16 camp start is itself a small data point. It sits in the same fortnight as India's white-ball fixtures and a clutch of domestic knockouts, which suggests the franchise is comfortable absorbing a smaller February group. Titans have used the same playbook before — opening with a compact group, then expanding in the final pre-season window — and the pattern lines up with how they have managed workload through the post-IPL off-season break.

The arithmetic also works in the other direction. A four-or-five-day camp with 12 or 13 players means the coaching staff can run two full nets side by side, split squads across fielding drills, and give every bowler in the available group enough overs to be assessed without over-bowling anyone before the heavy work begins. That is a familiar Titans method: build the rhythm first, layer the volume later, and trust the final 12-15-day block to do the match-simulation heavy lifting.

Fantasy cricket read-across

For captain pick and differential ceiling calculations, the next decisive window is the final 12-to-15-day pre-season block. That is the only stretch where the full squad is on the park together, where situational batting orders are trialled, and where match-up data against specific opposition bowling types becomes reliable. Until that window, treat domestic and India form as the primary anchor and use the Titans' February camp clips as confirmation rather than a leading signal.

Updates from the Gujarat Titans camp, the India white-ball series that runs in parallel, and the BCCI schedule announcement are all flowing through IPL Fantasy Play's IPL News desk through the lead-up to the March 26 opener.