Head coach Ricky Ponting praised the Indian players on the Punjab Kings’ roster as “special” talents and stated that the team’s goal was to rebuild around the “highest-quality” homegrown players.
With a substantial fund of Rs 110.5 crore, the PBKS entered the auction with only Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh and made several upscale purchases, including Shreyas Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Arshdeep Singh. Since IPL 2025, they have been the core of the team.
“Our young Indian talent, the guys at the top of the order, are pretty special. To build some of those Aussie guys around them, we had a really clear strategy going into the auction (2024) about trying to rebuild this whole team from the bottom up, and change and be different as a franchise,” PTI quoted Ponting telling JioHotStar.
Prior to captain Shreyas Iyer’s calm fifty to lead the pursuit of 210 against Chennai Super Kings at Chepauk on Friday night, young opener Priyansh Arya validated Ponting’s remarks with a scorching 11-ball 39.
“By just keeping Prabhsimran and Shashank, it gave us an opportunity for me to pick the guys that I wanted to work with. Shreyas was obviously number one on the list. But it was really important to get the highest-quality Indian players into our team with Arshdeep and Yuzi,” he added.
Chahal took a wicket for 21 runs in three overs during a pivotal middle-overs spell. Chahal’s performance against CSK delighted former India spinner Harbhajan Singh.
“Chahal isn’t very tall, so he uses that to his advantage by giving the ball more air and flight. The more you flight the ball, the more revs you get. And the more revolutions there are, the more the ball will dip and turn because of this, the batter feels like the ball is coming towards them, but it actually isn’t; the ball is still far from them.”
The seasoned leg-spinner took two wickets against Gujarat Titans while conceding only 28 runs in his four overs on Tuesday.
“This is classical spin bowling, which is a dying art, almost like dinosaurs; there are only a few left now. There’s Kuldeep, there’s Chahal. The rest say they are spinners, but like everyone else, they don’t bowl like one, they just keep bowling fast,” he said.
