Punjab Kings made a powerful comeback within the IPL 2025 Playoffs after a decade final week and topped it by confirming first place within the standings for the primary time since 2014, beating Mumbai Indians by eight wickets in Jaipur on Monday evening.
The Shreyas Iyer-led facet has been on a roll this season, ending on 19 factors with 9 wins in 14 matches. The Kings are slated to face one in all Royal Challengers Bengaluru or the Gujarat Titans within the Qualifier 1 contest on Might 29. Shashank Singh, one of many two gamers PBKS retained earlier than the season, hailed coach Ricky Ponting and skipper Iyer for remodeling Punjab’s workforce tradition this version.
Earlier than their Punjab reunion, the coach-captain duo have beforehand labored collectively on the Delhi Capitals once they led the franchise into the ultimate for the primary time in 2020.
Shashank recounted how Ponting and Iyer had made their intentions clear from day 1 of the season itself, emphasising that each member of the Punjab Kings contingent shall be handled with equal respect and maintained their phrase.
“Day 1, Ricky Ponting and Shreyas each instructed us. Like, they’ll deal with Yuzvendra Chahal, possibly essentially the most senior participant, and our bus driver the identical. I imply, that is one thing and so they have maintained this,” stated Shashank on the post-match press convention in Jaipur.
“They’ve proven the identical respect to Yuzvendra Chahal and to our bus driver, which says so much in regards to the workforce,” he added.
“He has modified the workforce tradition. He has modified our mindset. He has modified our beliefs. So, all these issues, the credit score must be to him. As a result of, clearly, he’s the one who modified our perspective in direction of the sport. Tradition, what I stated. Caring about one another. Respecting one another. I imply, it’s very simple to say all this stuff,” stated Shashank.