Punjab Kings registered their highest score of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 season, putting 236 on the board against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG). The likes of Prabhsimran Singh, Shreyas Iyer, and Shashank Singh contributed the most with the bat, adding scores of 91, 45 and 33 respectively but another batter whose cameo helped the team put a resounding total on the board was Josh Inglis. The Australian hadn’t done much with the bat until the match in Dharamsala, where he was promoted to the No. 3 spot. After the game, PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting revealed that the decision to change Inglis’ role was taken by skipper Shreyas Iyer.
“It was actually a move that the captain came up with, and Shreyas thought, on that sort of a pitch, against that bowling attack, it would be the right thing to. If a wicket fell early, to send Inglis in. We felt that Mayank would bowl early on, and 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 revealed in the press conference.
Inglis scored 30 runs from just 14 balls after Priyansh Arya departed for a 4-ball 1. Inglis scored 4 sixes during his cameo, setting the tone for Punjab’s performance with the bat. While LSG were preparing against Priyansh, Prabsimran and Iyer at the top of the batting order, Inglis came out of syllabus.
“So, yeah, that was what the captain wanted to do. It then also allows us to have, you know, 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. It was probably a surprise call for LSG to see him go out, and it paid off for us tonight.
“Once we got off to a [flier] you know, I think we were 70-odd at the end of the power play, all the momentum was going with us, and you see with our batting, we’ve got someone like Azmatullah at number nine, so we bat really, really deep, It allows our top order to play with a lot of freedom, and they did that tonight.”
In the press conference, Ponting also revealed that he had backed at least one of Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya to get a hundred in the match against LSG. Prabhsimran came quite close, scoring 91 from 48 balls in the match.
“Him (Prabhsimran) and Priyansh have got us off to some great starts in the tournament. They both before today, had both made 350 runs each in the tournament. I sort of challenged both of the openers in the team meeting today for one of them to go on and get a hundred in this match, and unfortunately, Prabh fell a little bit short of that.
“With our batting group, we’ve just given some really clear direction of the way that we want them to play to understand how important top order partnerships are in this competition, and we know that if Priyansh and Prabh get going together, that they can be ultra destructive. Priyansh mainly more against the faster bowlers, and Prabh’s as good a hitter against anybody going around, so they complement each other really well, being left hand, right hand, with one probably being slightly better against the quicks, and the other against spinners.
“It’s a really good, a really good group. That’s why when we sat down as a group, heading in, thinking about our auction strategy and the players that we wanted to retain, I think you’re starting to see why I was so keen to retain Prabhsimran. He’s a very, very good young player, and he’s very keen to bring success to this team, and that showed with the way that he played tonight.”
