Punjab Kings (PBKS) posted their highest score of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in Dharamsala on Sunday (May 4).
Asked to bat first, Prabhsimran Singh led the charge with 48-ball 91 while Shreyas Iyer (45 off 25), Shashank Singh (33* off 15) and Josh Inglis (30 off 14) made vital contributions as PBKS reached 236/5 in their allotted 20 overs.
With the ball, PBKS restricted LSG to 199/7 on the back of Arshdeep Singh’s stunning spell. The left-arm quick produced arguably his best IPL spell, taking out Lucknow’s top-three in no time to return with the figures of 3/16 in four overs.
After the game, PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting shared insights into Iyer's tactical masterclass, revealing that the decision to promote Inglis to the No. 3 spot was taken by the captain.
"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 in the post-match presser.
While LSG were preparing against Priyansh Arya, Prabsimran and Iyer at the top of the batting order, Inglis’ onslaught took them by surprise.
"So, yeah, that was what the captain wanted to do. It then also allows us to have, you know, Iyer, Wadhera 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."
Addressing the media, Ponting also revealed that he had backed at least one of Prabhsimran and Priyansh Arya to score a hundred against LSG. Prabhsimran came quite close, missing the milestone by just 9 runs.
"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.
"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."
