After Punjab Kings thrashed Kolkata Knight Riders to claim a historic win, their head coach Ricky Ponting was asked to move skipper Shreyas Iyer from number 3, in order to push Glenn Maxwell up the order. Maxwell, who was roped in by PBKS for Rs 4.2 crore, has been struggling for runs. Maxwell has managed to score only 41 runs after six games. Iyer, on the other hand, has been a true leader for PBKS at No.3 as he hammered 250 runs in six matches.
On the suggestion of switching Iyer’s position with Maxwell, Ponting hilariously said that he doesn’t want to mess with the captain.
“Yeah, we’ve got a guy called Shreyas Iyer at number 3. If I want to stay in my job, I’m probably not going to move the captain. So as we all know, the captain sets the batting order. He’s pretty happy at number 3 and he’s been outstanding in the tournament. So you know we’re always trying to find the right time in the game,” said Ponting after PBKS’ victory over KKR.
“It’s not about numbers that these guys bat. It’s about the right time that you can inject them into the game. So we’ve got good flexibility with our batting order. We’ve moved a few guys around already this season. As things go on, and we come up with a more settled side, there probably won’t be guys moving around too much,” he added.
Ahead of the match against KKR, PBKS took a strange call and dropped all-rounder Marcus Stoinis from the Playing XI and handed over the debut cap to wicketkeeper Josh Inglis. Ponting called that decision tough but a tactical one.
“Yeah, a tough decision to leave Stoinis out, you know, we wanted to bring Inglis into the side. Inglis is a noted player of spin that didn’t probably look that way tonight, but he is a very, very good player of spin. His keeping is as good as anyone’s in the world as well, and we wanted the matchups with the ball with Marco,” said Ponting.
“We wanted the matchups with the ball with Glenn Maxwell. So unfortunately, for Marcus Stoinis, it had to be him that missed out tonight, but then you go to a different venue, you know, in two days we’re up in Bangalore against them up there. Who knows what combination we might come up with for that?” he added.
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