Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting was named the head coach of the Punjab Kings after his tenure with the Delhi Capitals came to an end last year. Kings, who are infamously known for changing captains and coaches every year or two, took the plunge and signed on Ponting for four years. Ponting was clear at the start that he wanted to do the things at the team eyeing their maiden title his way and stuck to that thought process.
Ponting was asked by Mark Howard on his Podcast ‘The Howie Games’ about choosing to go with Punjab despite having a couple of more offers and the former Australian skipper responded by saying that he was keen to turn things around not just performance-wise for the franchise but culture-wise as well while demanding autonomy from the owners to run the team in a way that he wants to.
“Just make it completely different from what it has been. They’re aware of that, the owners, the administrators, the board of directors of this team are very aware of how I’m going to do things and I have told them,” Ponting said. “I laid it out right at the start. I’ve been in the IPL for 10 years, I have heard a lot of things that perceivably happened at this franchise and I’ve said to them, if you want it to be different then make it different.”
“Conversations have been had, we’ve had a good auction. I am happy with what we have done there. But from this moment on, although they’re the owners of the team, it’s my team now. They have to accept this is the way we’re doing things,” Ponting added while mentioning that he has been in franchises where the owners have had discussions with him regarding who should play or not but he was clear with his initial talks with the Kings management having the freedom to work as he wants to. A couple of players in the past have blatantly talked about not wanting to play for Punjab Kings and Ponting will hope to turn it 180 degrees north
“It’s going to be really different, with the way we are perceived, the way people see us, the way we present ourselves, the way that we train, the way we play, the way we’re led, it’s all going to be different. And the auction strategy for me, if I am going to rebuild this franchise and make it more successful than ever then I’ve got to start with the right Indian players,” Ponting on the importance of having a quality Indian core.
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Punjab Kings splurged INR 26.75 crore for Shreyas Iyer, last year’s IPL-winning captain, as their leader while spending INR 18 crore each for Yuzvendra Chahal and Arshdeep Singh, the two leading wicket-takers for India in T20Is. This was done just in the two marquee sets and the Kings had their core to build from.
