From the docs: 
  @sheets = $xls->sheets;

[download]
Each spreadsheet can contain one or more worksheets. This fetches them all back. You can then iterate over them, or jump straight to the one you wish to play with.
So, to get, for example, the 3rd worksheet you can do something like $thirdsheet = ($xls->sheets)[3];
In your example, you are getting the 6th column, which consists of the 6th element in each single row.
As far as I see it, the only way to get a specific row, is in an empty for-loop: 
for (1..5) { # skip first five rows
   $sheet->has_data or die "Can't get 5th row: Too few rows\n";
   $sheet->next_row;
}
my @data = $sheet->next_row;

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Hope this helps (and works - this computer doesn't have Excel installed, so it's untested).
Addendum: You might be interested in the Spreadsheet::ParseExcel module, which has a broader variety of commands. Specifically, you can get the contents of single cells from a worksheet.

In reply to Re: Spreadsheet::ParseExcel::Simple by CombatSquirrel
in thread Spreadsheet::ParseExcel::Simple, reading specific cells? by Anonymous Monk

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