“We haven’t achieved anything yet”

PBKS made it to the playoffs in IPL 2025, after a massive gap of 11 years, and then went on to seal their spot for the qualifier 1 as well, after they beat MI on Monday. But yet, coach Ricky Ponting feels, “they haven’t achieved anything yet”.

“I’m obviously very pleased for the group,” Ponting told the host broadcasters after the match. “It’s a lot of hard work that goes into being able to achieve something like this as a team. I think it’s pretty obvious to see that this is a really talented team that are all on the same page and heading in the same direction.

PBKS Move Closer to IPL 2025 Final

“I mean yeah, it’s a great achievement till now but really, if you look back, we haven’t achieved anything yet. That’s the one thing I’ve been saying to the players since the moment we qualified,” he added. Now it remains to be seen which side they end facing in the qualifier 1 — GT or RCB..

“The vision for me was always to finish in the top two, and we’ve got there now. It’s a really happy group and we’ve enjoyed our time in each other’s company for the last ten weeks, but we’ve got another week to go yet.” Ponting then also opened up on how he was keen to work again with Shreyas Iyer — the same man, who he had taken DC to final in 2020.

Ricky Ponting + Shreyas Iyer = Playoffs

“I was pretty keen to work with him Iyer again. It was pretty obvious that how much money I was willing to spend on him at the auction. We had a great working relationship in Delhi, we made a final in Delhi under his captaincy. I’ve known him as a person and as a player for a long time.

“He’s a quality person and when you’ve got quality people around your team, when you’re trying to make a difference and you’re trying to change culture, that’s what you need. If you spoke to the players individually, I think every single one of them would give Shreyas a great rap because he has spent a lot of time with them,” Ponting said.