New Delhi: Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting praised skipper Shreyas Iyer for using Josh Inglis as a No.3 batter in their 37-run win over Lucknow Super Giants in the IPL 2025.
Punjab has generally used Inglish as a destructive hitter lower down the batting order till the LSG game when he was promoted to the one-down position. The right hander scored a sparkling a 14-ball 30 with the help of one four and four sixes scoring at a strike rate of 214.29.
Together with player of the match Prabhsimran Singh (91, 48 balls, 6×4, 7×6), Iglis put together a 48-run stand in 22 balls for the second wicket while thrashing Mayank Yadav for three sixes and a bundary off pacer Mayank Yadav.
“It was actually a move that the captain came up with, and Shreyas thought, on that sort of a pitch, against that bowling attack, it would be the right thing to. If a wicket fell early, to send Inglis in. We felt that Mayank would bowl early on, and if you look at the way he bowls, he generally bowls reasonably short, and that’s one of Inglis’ great strengths. As you saw tonight, those pull shots were pretty amazing straight away,” Ponting said after his team’s win.
“So, yeah, that was what the captain wanted to do. It then also allows us to have, you know, Iyer, Wadera and Shashank through the middle of the innings, which is what we thought would be crucial for us in tonight’s game as well. It was probably a surprise call for LSG to see him go out, and it paid off for us tonight.
“Once we got off to a [flier] you know, I think we were 70-odd at the end of the power play, all the momentum was going with us, and you see with our batting, we’ve got someone like Azmatullah at number nine, so we bat really, really deep, It allows our top order to play with a lot of freedom, and they did that tonight.”
Opening pair shines
Punjab’s opening pair of Prabhsimran and Priyansh Arya have given the team to strong starts. Prabhsimran has scored 437 runs at a strike rate of 170.03 while Arya has amaased 347 runs at 192.77, drawing praise from Ponting.
“Him (Prabhsimran) and Priyansh have got us off to some great starts in the tournament. They both before today, had both made 350 runs each in the tournament. I sort of challenged both of the openers in the team meeting today for one of them to go on and get a hundred in this match, and unfortunately, Prabh fell a little bit short of that,” the former Australia captain said.
“With our batting group, we’ve just given some really clear direction of the way that we want them to play to understand how important top order partnerships are in this competition, and we know that if Priyansh and Prabh get going together, that they can be ultra destructive. Priyansh mainly more against the faster bowlers, and Prabh’s as good a hitter against anybody going around, so they complement each other really well, being left hand, right hand, with one probably being slightly better against the quicks, and the other against spinners.
“It’s a really good, a really good group. That’s why when we sat down as a group, heading in, thinking about our auction strategy and the players that we wanted to retain, I think you’re starting to see why I was so keen to retain Prabhsimran. He’s a very, very good young player, and he’s very keen to bring success to this team, and that showed with the way that he played tonight.”
Ricky Ponting said Shreyas Iyer’s idea of promoting Josh Inglis worked wonders for PBKS against LSG. Cricket Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Cricket Live Score, Sports Breaking News from Sports Today
