Former Australian captain and current IPL franchise coach Ricky Ponting has once again come under fire for his strategy of promoting the Australian up the order against in-form Indian cricketers in Saturday’s match against Kolkata Knight Riders.
In the crucial encounter, PBKS openers Prabhsimaran Singh (83 off 49 balls) and Priyansh Arya (69 off 35 balls) took their team past the 120-run mark in just under 12 overs. After Priyansh Arya’s wicket at the end of the 12th over, Prabhsimran fell in the 15th over.
While Arya was replaced at the crease by Shreyas Iyer, the choice of number 4 batsman for PBKS was puzzling as the out-of-form Glenn Maxwell came to bat instead of Shashank Singh or Nehal Wadhera.
Maxwell continued to struggle this season and eventually fell to Varun Chakravarthy for 7 off 8 balls in the 17th over. Even after Maxwell’s wicket, PBKS did not send in the Indian batsmen, relying instead on South African Marco Jansen (3 off 7 balls) and Australian Josh Inglis (11 off 6 balls).
Former cricketer reacts to PBKS’ bizzare strategy:
Former Indian cricketer Manoj Tiwary was not impressed with PBK’s strategy of pushing foreign players up the order in place of in-form Indian batsmen, and went as far as to say that the franchise would not be able to win the IPL this season because of a “lack of confidence” in the local talent. With skipper Iyer batting at the time, the blame for the decision to play foreign players fell squarely on coach Ricky Ponting.
In a post on X (Formerly Twitter), Tiwary wrote, “My gut feeling says that punjab team will not be able to win the #IPL trophy this season because what I saw today when they were batting was, the coach didn’t send Indian inform batters Nehal wadera and Shasank singh, instead he trusted his foreign players to deliver, but they cudnt and clearly showed lack of confidence in Indian players down the order. If he persist in this way then the title is far from them irrespective of there qualification in top two.”
Notably, this isn’t the first time Ponting has been involved in IPL controversy, having previously been criticised for selecting 5 Australian players (out of the 8 foreign player quota) during the IPL 2025 mega auction. Among the Australian talent available with the franchise are: Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglis, Aaron Hardie and Xavier Bartlett.
