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The great coaching shuffle is on in the IPL so how could Punjab Kings (PBKS) stay behind? It's a franchise that sees head coaches like fast fashion, and let's not even talk about batting coaches, bowling coaches, and other support staff.
But this time it feels quite significant. They have landed Australian legend, IPL, and the recent Major League Cricket-winning coach Ricky Ponting.
For the first time in forever, it feels like PBKS are looking for a long-term fix instead of short-term hope. Ponting almost turned around Delhi Capitals' fortune, taking them to three playoffs (and a final) in his first four seasons, but failed to go all the way.
There's no reason why he could do it at PBKS. He's immensely experienced, considered one of the shrewdest minds in the sport, garners utmost respect from seniors, has a huge sway on youth, and thus can make the team play to his philosophies.
But PBKS would be bigger than any challenge he has ever taken. Below, we list three major challenges Ponting would have to overcome to have a big impact on PBKS' present and future.
#3 Stability
Ponting is the third head coach for PBKS in four seasons. Only Sanjay Bangar and Anil Kumble have stayed more than a year at the job since 2010.
For Bangar, the stint ended with a horrible, widely-reported argument with co-owner Preity Zinta, before he returned last season as the director. Ponting should know what he has signed up for.
Stability is the hallmark of the most successful sides - look at Chennai Super Kings and Stephen Fleming or Mumbai Indians and Rohit Sharma till last year - and PBKS have tended to go the opposite way. Their owners have always seemed quite result-oriented, meaning coaches and captains don't get time to convert their processes into wins.
Then, you look at Ponting's interviews and philosophies and he comes across as someone who likes to drive change through the culture of the team as that kind of difference takes time to come through. His first challenge would be demanding backing and trust from the management, and asking that his tenure be judged on over a few seasons.
It's understandable why PBKS are impatient but like players, coaches need the right environment to succeed. Winning the title or even reaching the top two in the first season after a big reset in a league as competitive as the IPL is almost impossible. Ponting would need trust, belief, and no friction or too-and-fro with the owners to fulfill his potential.
#2 Captaincy
Although he won't mind starting from scratch, Ponting would perhaps have been happier had Shikhar Dhawan not retired this year. They knew each other from their Delhi days and Dhawan, a popular and loved figure in the PBKS camp, would have been the perfect captain to transmit Ponting's views and ideas to the playing squad.
Now, Ponting's second major challenge would be finding a captain he can trust and vice-versa. Successful captains are either picked up in auctions at high prices (like Shreyas Iyer) or promoted from being the team's promising youngsters to the franchise's face (like Ruturaj Gaikwad).
PBKS would find both difficult as they don't have any youngsters nearing the prime of their careers with enough domestic captaincy experience to take up the huge responsibility. Jitesh Sharma is perhaps the only choice but he, too, looked raw when he took the role temporarily last season.
Picking someone established in the auction would probably be quite difficult because PBKS are one of the only teams looking to let a good number of their best players go. All other franchises would probably be ready to retain or re-sign their best players in the auction, making finding the perfect captain highly unpredictable and expensive.
Shreyas and Rohit both bloomed under Ponting's watch so he does have an eye for the right men. But whether or not he'd be able to find another from the messy haystack of IPL auction could define his tenure at the Mullanpur-based franchise.
#1 Creating a winning culture
IPL is still quite a young league in world sports. Football, basketball, and American football, among others, have many examples of teams that haven't been able to shake off their trophy-less campaigns in the first couple of decades, allowing the gap between them and the top franchises to widen.
PBKS seem at that kind of an inflection point. Although IPL is much more competitive because it has just 10 teams, PBKS have finished 15 out of 17 seasons out of the playoffs, which can't get worse.
The desperation from owners and fans takes an intangible toll on the culture of the team and eventually on-field performances where matches slip away from winning positions and pessimism takes over the mood. You can also sense that from their social media messaging, the promises of an overhaul and a 'new look PBKS' every few years.
There's a lack of inspiration too. For example, Kolkata Knight Riders' IPL 2025 success after years of slumber was buoyed by the Gautam Gambhir era's memories and legacy. Ponting has nothing of that sort to bring up, to make the team fight for the batch and that's his final, and perhaps the biggest, challenge.
He'd know that a lot of big coaches have presented their ideas to PBKS, a lot of them have gotten fresh starts but none have made them count yet. There's an opportunity to stand out, only if he could avoid the early muddle.
