Vishwas Puri
Punjab Kings have appointed former Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting as the new head coach of the team for the upcoming season. The official announcement was made today by the PBKS. Earlier Ricky Ponting was the head coach of the Delhi Capitals from 2018 to 2024. Before Ricky Ponting, Trevor Bayliss was the coach of PBKS whose two-year contract ended after the 2024 season. Trevor Bayliss was also the coach of the World Cup winning England team of the 2019 ODI World Cup. But being unhappy with the performance of the team under the coaching of Bayliss, the franchise decided not to extend the contract with him for the upcoming years.
Alongside, Ricky Ponting also got released by Delhi Capitals as the head coach of the team. Therefore PBKS saw this as an opportunity to get a coach with a well-established coaching career for the team. Earlier this year, Ponting was also the coach of Washington Freedom who won the title this year in the Major League Cricket of USA. Earlier there were a number of reports that the Contract with Trevor Bayliss was not renewed because the franchise was looking for an Indian for the role. But ironically, the franchise introduced an Australian coach for the designation of head coach.
PBKS has not qualified for the playoffs of IPL since 10 years. The last time they made it to the playoffs was under the captaincy of George Bailey who took his team to the only final they ever played in the league. Since then, the team was not up to the mark in any of the seasons. Not just Coaches, the team has also never been consistent while appointing captains too. Great players like Yuvraj Singh, Mahela Jayawardene, Kumar Sangakkara and Virendra Sehwag has coached the team but no one could be able to lead the team to title victory, Adam Gilchrist was the only captain who has led this team for more than a period of 2 years.
The PBKS is looking to build a new staff and a new team ahead of the IPL 2025 as they are also considering releasing most of their players ahead of the mega auction. In the franchise owners meeting in August, The franchise also demanded to allow a minimal number of retentions which would allow them to build a fresh squad for the upcoming seasons. This demand was argued by a number of other franchises such as KKR and CSK which have a well-established squad and do not want much changes in their squad.
