After the squad moves on from Suryakumar Yadav, Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting has endorsed his franchise captain Shreyas Iyer to lead India in the T20 format, claiming that he is “more mature” and at the peak of his game.
Suryakumar just led India to an unprecedented third T20 World Cup title victory, but even in the current Indian Premier League, he has been far from his best and his form has severely declined over the past 12 months.
“There are several contenders (for the captaincy job post Surya), but he’s (Shreyas Iyer) one of the main contenders as far as I’m concerned. We saw at the start of the tournament just how good a T20 player he is and where he’s at, both on and off the field right now,” the Australian legend told PTI in an interview.
“He’s a much more mature player than he’s probably ever been in his whole career. He’s completely on top of his game now,” said the batting great.
Even though Shreyas is not a member of the national squad, there has been more talk recently about him being the next India T20 captain. Prior to the team’s shocking six-game losing streak, Punjab Kings’ unprecedented run in the first half of the IPL added to the excitement surrounding him. However, Shreyas has an outstanding track record as a leader.
Before joining the Punjab Kings, he guided the Kolkata Knight Riders to the IPL title. He led the Punjab squad to its first final in 11 years during his debut season. Punjab Kings can still qualify for the playoffs despite the drastic change in their luck.
Ponting stated that Shreyas and the team will bounce back ahead of their crucial final league match against a defeated Lucknow Super Giants.
“There are going to be times when you have your ups and downs as an individual and as a team. I’m pretty sure he’ll bounce back in this last game that we’ve got. If he stands up and makes a big score, then have a good chance of winning the game,” Ponting said.
Ponting, who led the invincible Australian team in the early 2000s, expressed surprise at Shreyas’ exclusion from the Indian T20 squad.
“Whenever India selects a team, and Sheryas is not in it, I’m always very surprised. On the back of this IPL, I’m sure he’s one name the selectors will talk about, not just to get back into the side, but also with the captaincy next to his name.”
“The thing about Indian cricket is that you don’t just walk back into teams. You’ve got to put a lot of runs on the board and do it in a certain way. His season so far has been very impressive, and his captaincy has been excellent.”
“He’s in that little sweet spot in his life and career where, if captaincy came his way, then I think he’d make the most of it,” said Ponting.
The team has received a lot of criticism on social media due to several off-field issues, but Ponting claimed that the bad talk has not entered the dressing room despite the squad’s campaign being on a downhill spiral.
“There haven’t been any off-field things that I’ve had to worry about as a coach. We’ve managed everything the way we need to manage as a team. There’s so much social media out there that one little headline turns into a big story, but that doesn’t affect us. We know what we need to do as players to win games of cricket, and we push on with that, if we qualify, then all this negativity out there about us will go away,” said Ponting.
The squad flew to Delhi for a few nights after suffering a hat trick of defeats in Dharamsala, and on Wednesday night they left for Lucknow.
After the team’s loss to Royal Challengers Bengaluru, Ponting stated he gave the players a brief rest and postponed his motivational speech until after they arrived in Lucknow.
“It’s pretty simple for us. We’ve got to get back to believing in just how good we are and remember the way we played in our first six or seven games of the season. We need to hold on to those thoughts and memories instead of fearing failure or worrying about not having success.
“At our best, we’ve been the most fearless team in the tournament. We’ve been daring…That’s what I’ll be talking about again and making sure we bring those things into the game against Lucknow on Sunday,” he said.
On the extreme highs and lows experienced in the tournament, Ponting added: “The first part was probably some of the best T20 cricket that I’ve ever seen from any team that I’ve been around. The team was breaking records left, right and centre, playing a really high-quality style of cricket.”
“It was a high-impact, high-risk style, and it worked really well for us at the start. But as you know, in an IPL where all teams are very even, you can’t afford to be off by even a couple of per cent in any aspect of the game. Over the last six games, we’ve probably just been a little off in most aspects of our game.”
