Former Indian cricketers criticized PBK for favoring foreign players over formal Indian cricketers, noting that the chances of franchise winning the IPL were hurt because of their lack of confidence in local talent.
Former Australian captain and current IPL franchise Punjab Kings coach Ricky Ponting faces criticism again for his decision to promote the order of Australian players to batting orders in Saturday’s match against the Kolkata Cavaliers riders.
In this crucial match, PBKS openers Prabhsimaran Singh (83 hits 49 balls) and Priyansh Arya (69 hits 35 balls) pushed their team over 120 strokes in less than 12 matches. At the end of the 12th, after Arya was fired, Prabhsimaran followed suit after the 15th.
Who would be 4th in PBK’s brow lift when Arya was replaced by Shryas Iyer, when struggling Glenn Maxwell came in instead of Shashank Singh or Nehal Wadhera.
Maxwell’s struggle continued this season, and he was eventually rejected by Varun Chakravarthy for only seven goals in his 17th game. Even after Maxwell quit, PBK chose not to send Indian batsmen, but instead relied on South Africa Marco Jansen (7 goals in 3 strokes) and Australian Josh Josh Inglis (6 goals in 11 runs).
Former Indian cricketer Manoj Tiwary was disappointed with PBKS’ strategy of prioritizing foreign players over Indian cricketers, even suggesting that the chances of winning the IPL this season were hampered by the “lack of confidence” of local talent. With Captain Iyer in a crease, the responsibility for favoring foreign players fell directly on coach Ricky Ponting.
Tiwary wrote in an article on X (formerly known as Twitter): “My intuition says that the Punjab team will not be able to win the #Ilp trophy this season because what I saw when I was batting today is that the coach did not inform Indian batsmen Nehal Wadera and Shasank Singh, instead he showed his foreign players, but they showed orders among Indian players if they had shown in the Indians. Eligible in both the top two.”
My intuition says that the Punjab team will not win #IPL The trophy this season is because what I saw when I was batting today is that the coach did not send batsmen Nehal Wadera and Shasank Singh to India, but rather that he trusted his foreign players to deliver, but they…
– manoj tiwary (@tiwarymanoj) April 26, 2025
Pang Ting has been involved in IPL controversy before, especially during the IPL 2025 Mega Aucuction, five Australian players were selected from the quota of 8 foreign players. Australian talents offered by the franchise include Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglis, Aaron Hardie and Xavier Bartlett.
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