Shreyas Iyer boasts a fairly impressive record as captain in the IPL.
Punjab Kings (PBKS) head coach Ricky Ponting has strongly endorsed Shreyas Iyer for India’s T20I captaincy after the world champions move on from Suryakumar Yadav, citing that his franchise skipper is at the top of his game and has never been "more mature".
While Suryakumar successfully led India to their record third T20 World Cup title earlier this year, a dramatic dip in his individual form over the past year has prompted the BCCI to reconsider the team's leadership future.
"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," Ponting told PTI.
"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," the former Australian captain added.
Shreyas recently became only the fifth captain in IPL history to cross the 100-match leadership mark, joining the likes of MS Dhoni, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Gautam Gambhir. He has also produced impressive results, leading KKR to the title win in 2024 besides taking DC and PBKS to the final in 2020 and 2025, respectively.
In the ongoing IPL 2026, Punjab Kings were undefeated after the first 7 games but still jeopardized their playoff chances by losing the next 6 matches. However, Ponting backed Shreyas Iyer to captain the side to a turnaround in their must-win final league fixture against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG).
"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 we have a good chance of winning the game," Ponting said.
Ponting, who led Australia to two ODI World Cup titles, finds it baffling that Shreyas is not part of the Indian T20I set-up.
"Whenever India selects a team, and Shreyas 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," the PBKS coach remarked.
Ricky Ponting also addressed the heavy social media criticism surrounding his team's late-season slump and off-field incidents, noting that such negativity has not breached the dressing room while also emphasizing that winning games is the only focus to clear up the chatter.
"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.
After the loss to RCB, Ponting deliberately delayed his motivational pep talk until the team assembled 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 stated.
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."