Ricky Ponting opens up on his work relation with Shreyas Iyer after PBKS ensure top two finish
Ricky Ponting and Shreyas Iyer have been working together since their association at Delhi Capitals. The PBKS head coach Ponting opened up on his working relationship with the now Punjab captain Shreyas Iyer.
Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting opened up on his association with skipper Shreyas Iyer following the team ensured a top-two finish after beating Mumbai Indians on Monday, May 26. PBKS have become the first team to ensure a top-two finish after they chased down 185 against MI with seven wickets in hand. PBKS will now play in Qualifier 1 on May 29 and they wait for their opponent.
Meanwhile, Ponting opened up on the win and his work relationship with Iyer after Punjab’s win over MI. “Shreyas has been outstanding. We’re a happy group, enjoyed each other’s company ten weeks, got one more to go. Pretty obvious I was keen to work with Shreyas considering how much I spent at the auction. We had a good working relationship in Delhi. I’ve known him from a long time. He’s a quality person. It’s what you need when you need to form a culture,” Ponting said on Iyer after the match.
He also opened on the campaign. “Very pleased, lot of hard work goes into achieving this. Starts from the auction, big thing for me was to come to a new franchise and make a difference straightaway. It’s obvious to see that it’s a quality team, heading in the same direction. We haven’t done anything yet, that’s what I’ve been telling players, the big games are to come. Prabhsimran is 23-24 and has got 500 runs, I said maybe four or five games in that Priyansh is one of the finds of the tournament. Hard to argue with now. Fearless young talent seeing and hitting the ball. Overseas players – Inglis, Stoinis have been great,” he said.
Ponting feels that there is still a lot of work to be done, considering the playoffs are coming up. “We’ll celebrate tonight, we’ve done that after every game apart from the last one due to the short turnaround. Got a late afternoon flight tomorrow, we’ll work out where our training slots fit. We’ll rest players up. Jansen is a high-quality individual, tough to replace him. Got Jamieson in tonight to ensure he got a game before Marco left. Every team’s missing players, we’d like to think we’ve got good depth and be able to cover for Marco despite it being a big miss,” he said.
