The usual top three of Punjab Kings- Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, and Shreyas Iyer have been wreaking havoc against bowling lineups in the IPL 2025.
However, in the game against on Sunday, there was a tweak in the line up with Australian wicket-keeper batter Josh Inglis come to bat at number three.
coach credited the move to skipper who wanted to play on Inglis’s strength of playing the short ball.
“It was actually a move that the captain came up with. He thought on that sort of pitch, against that bowling attack, that it would be the right thing to, if a wicket fell early, to send Josh Inglis in. We felt that Mayank would bowl early on. 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 explained the move in the post match press conference.
The move worked with Inglis hitting tearaway pacer Mayank Yadav for three successive sixes in the second over. Inglis’ 30 off 14 balls set the tone for the powerplay in which PBKS hit 66 for 2.
Shreyas Iyer’s 45 runs off 25 balls and Shashank Singh’s 33 runs of 15 balls ensured that PBKS use the platform set by Inglis and post a big total of 236 runs.
“It then also allows us to have 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,” Ponting said.
Apart from being a tactical move, it also ensured that PBKS has a deep batting lineup in case of a middle order collapse.
Talking about the batting depth of his team, Ponting said,” It was probably a suprise call for to see Inglis at number and it paid off for us. As we have a deep batting lineup with Azmatullah Omarzai coming at number 9, it allows our top order to play freely and that’s what they did tonight.”
have now won seven games and are placed second in the behind with 15 points.
