Punjab Kings coach Ricky Ponting lauded his team's 'special' uncapped players after their IPL 2026 victory over CSK. He highlighted the franchise's strategy of rebuilding the team around young Indian talent like Prabhsimran and Shashank.
Punjab Kings defeated the five-time champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) on Friday to claim their second win of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026, and their head coach, Ricky Ponting, called the uncapped players of PBKS special.
'Clear strategy' to rebuild team
Speaking on JioHotstar, Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting shared his thoughts on the squad centred around uncapped players. Prabhsimran Singh, Priyansh Arya, Shashank Singh, Nehal Wadhera and Vijaykumar Vyshak are uncapped players who were part of the match against CSK on Friday.
"Some of our young Indian talent, the guys at the top of the order, are pretty special. To build some of those Aussie guys around them, we had a really clear strategy going into the auction last year about trying to rebuild this whole team from the bottom up, and change and be different as a franchise. By just keeping Prabhsimran and Shashank, it gave us an opportunity for me to pick the guys that I wanted to work with," said Ponting.
Talking about getting the senior Indian players in the auction, Ponting said, "Shreyas was obviously number one on the list. But it was really important to get the highest-quality Indian players into our team with Arshdeep and Yuzi."
Five-wicket win over CSK
PBKS defeated CSK by five wickets on Friday when they successfully chased down a 210-run target with eight balls to spare, thanks to the valuable contributions from Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh and captain Shreyas Iyer.
Asked to bat first, CSK set a 210-run target for the last year's finalists thanks to Mhatre's 73-run knock and crucial contributions from Shivam Dube (45 not out) and Sarfaraz Khan (32 off 12 balls).
"The toss went our way again, and we were really keen to chase on that pitch. It looked like a belter of a wicket with a little bit of grass on it, something that we're not used to seeing in Chennai," said Ponting about the win over CSK.
Focus shifts to KKR clash
Punjab Kings are set to clash with Kolkata Knight Riders in their next IPL match on Monday at the Eden Gardens.
Speaking about the upcoming match, Ponting said, "We're happy, but you can't afford to be too happy in a tournament like this. We've got a game in a couple of days at Eden Gardens, and that's going to be a high-scoring game." (ANI)
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