It wasn’t a statement win, but there were a few signs in Punjab King’s 11-run victory over hosts Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad that this team means business. Part of the Punjab management’s answer to a decade of failing to make it to the IPL playoff was a near complete overhaul of their squad, with just two players retained and two more bought at the mega auction last November, and then to splurge nearly Rs 27 crore on Shreyas Iyer before naming Ricky Ponting as head coach.
Both coach and captain have made strong statements in the buildup to IPL 2025 – Ponting said he intends to make this ‘the greatest Punjab team’ –
and on Tuesday there were indications that the franchise is headed in the right direction.
Iyer blazed a superb unbeaten 97 off 42 balls, hitting nine sixes and five fours to anchor the innings to 243/5, with Shashank Singh taking over at the death with 44 not out from just 16 balls. When Shashank, one of two retained players, joined his skipper at the crease during the 16th over, Iyer was batting on 64 from 30 balls. In the next over, Iyer pulled out all the stops by hammering Prasidh Krishna for 24 runs. That took him to 90 from 38 balls with three overs left.
But the Punjab captain would gave just four of the next 18 deliveries remaining in the innings, with Shashank taking over to run the Gujarat bowling ragged. Rashid Khan was struck for two sixes and a four in his last over, which cost 20, and the final over, bowled by Mohammed Siraj, brought 23 as Shashank flayed five fours.
The team’s designated finisher said after the innings was over that Iyer told him when to now worry about his century, and instead to just hit out in the 20th over. This is rare in Indian cricket for a big-name player one hit away from a century, and perhaps it is an indication of how Iyer – and perhaps the IPL – is now thinking. Milestones are great, but the team’s cause is greater.
In the end result, given how 11 runs is not a big margin of victory, it is Iyer’s 97 not out off 42 balls that was the difference. Because as handy as GT captain Shubman Gill’s 14-ball 33 inside the Powerplay was, and as smooth as B Sai Sudarshan looked in getting 74 off 44 and Jos Buttler for his 33-ball 54, before the Impact Player Sherfane Rutherford clubbed 46 off 28, none bore the gravitas of Iyer’s innings.
Gujarat lost momentum between overs 15 to 18, from which 30 runs came, with Marco Jansen and Punjab’s Impact Player, the domestic pacer Vijaykumar Vyshak, doing tremendously. The bowling has some grey areas still, but if Vijaykumar can continue to hold his nerve at the death as he did in Ahmedabad, then Punjab could push for the playoffs.
This win marked a victory for Ponting in his first match as Punjab coach, having switched over after seven seasons with Delhi Capitals. One of the new players in this team that Ponting has talked up is 24-year-old opener Priyansh Arya, who made headlines during the inaugural Delhi Premier League when he hit six sixes in an over. Ponting and Iyer gave Arya an IPL debut in Ahmedabad ahead of a proven international performer like Josh Inglies, and the rookie showed what the fuss was about by scoring 47 off 23 deliveries even though there appears to be a proclivity to throw his hands at pretty much everything.
His first scoring shot was a flick for four off Siraj, followed by a bigger shot over the boundary when Kagiso Rabada erred in his line. Arshad Khan’s opening over cost 21, with Arya bringing out his range of shots. Arya has been backed for a big season by Ponting, and the way these players respond to this faith could end up being the defining chapter of Punjab’s IPL 2025 campaign.
