The Punjab Kings (PBKS) had a dream start to their Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 campaign, winning six out of their first seven matches. However, things went downhill for them all of a sudden as they lost six matches in a row and are fighting tooth and nail for a place in the playoffs.
On Saturday, May 23, PBKS will face the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) at the BRSABV Ekana Cricket Stadium in their last league game. They are currently placed at No. 5 in the standings, with 13 points from as many matches.
Shreyas Iyer and Co. will have to win the match, preferably by a big margin to keep their playoff hopes alive. However, they can still be knocked out if the Rajasthan Royals win their last game. Even if the Royals lose, the Kolkata Knight Riders can spoil Punjab’s party by winning their last match by a huge margin.
PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting opined that his team failed to do the small things right, but they can turn things around by playing their A-game on Saturday.
“We were exceptional for our first seven or six games,” Ponting said, “then we had that washout against Kolkata Knight Riders, and I think from that moment on we’ve just been a little bit off and as I said they’re small things. They’re one or two balls or they’re an over here and there that quite conceivably, we could have won another three or four games, but we’ve only got ourselves to blame for that. We’re in the situation that we’re in as a result of not playing at our best over the last few weeks, but we’ve also got a very good idea of what our best cricket looks like and what it is and what we have to do to win tomorrow, and that’s all we can focus on,” Ponting was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
The Lucknow Super Giants were eliminated earlier in the tournament, and Ponting understands that their players don’t have much to lose, which will allow them to play fearless cricket. However, the former Australian captain wants his team to fight fire with fire and not let negativity creep in.
“I mean they, Lucknow, going into tomorrow. Apart from probably personal pride and pride for the franchise’s performance, they’ve really got nothing else to lose, so teams can be dangerous in that way. But we understand that, we know that, and that’s the way that I want my boys to play as well. I want us to be fearless and I want us to be daring, I want us to take the game on and not be worried about what might happen, the negative things that might happen in the game,” Ponting opined.
“It’s really important we focus on the positive things and what you can do as an individual player to make an impact on the game there and then,” he added.
The atmosphere remains very positive and very relaxed: Ricky Ponting
Ponting asserted that the mood in the PBKS camp is very positive and relaxed. He wants everyone to keep faith in the things that worked for the team earlier in the campaign.
“The atmosphere remains very positive and very relaxed. I think the worst thing you can do in a situation like this is panic and worry about what tomorrow brings. You’ve just got to stick to what you know has worked for you in the past as a player and certainly as a coach and a group of coaches, that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve done our best to make sure that the environment’s stayed very positive and very relaxed and let the players just go about getting themselves prepared and ready for a game,” Ponting said.
