AGENCY
NEW DELHI, Mar 24
Ricky Ponting wants to make this one of the “greatest Punjab Kings team of all time.” Ahead of their IPL 2025 opener against Gujarat Titans in Ahmedabad, assistant coach Brad Haddin echoed similar sentiments.
“That’s exciting to the players,” Haddin said, when asked if Ponting’s statement put pressure on them. “In this day and age, you want to challenge the player group to touch greatness. That’s what we want to see everyday. We want to see them get better than they were yesterday, better than what they were the previous week.
“You have to set high expectations and high goals. The reason is we’re happy with the group we’ve put together. We’ve been ultra impressed with what they’ve done at training camps. Now all they want to do is play cricket. They’ve had enough cricket in camps, they want to get out there and express themselves.”
It’s Buttler vs Maxwell as Titans kick off against new-look PBKS
Kings bought Shreyas Iyer for INR 26.75 crores to captain a new-look side that features the experience of Yuzvendra Chahal and Arshdeep Singh along with young talents like Priyansh Arya and Suryansh Shedge. They also multiple allrounders in Marco Jansen, Glenn Maxwell and Marcus Stoinis.
Asked if the Australian flavour to the Kings support staff group was a “good thing” in driving culture towards team success, Haddin heaped praise on Shreyas, who he termed as a “driven captain” who would lead the way in establishing “standards” and “habits.”
“We’ve got a driven captain who has had a lot of success, not just for India but in the competition and in this form of the game,” Haddin said. “From the captain down, he has brought everyone together, the staff are on the same page as the players. From that point of view, what we’re seeing is a high[-quality] group being led by the standards and habits of the captain.” Haddin was also clear of the Kings’ brand of cricket, without divulging much about their choice of personnel.
“If you have a look at the way IPL has developed, especially with impact player, it allows players up top to play with a lot more freedom,” he said. “Last year, we saw an increase in powerplay numbers. This year, it’ll increase again. From our point of view, it’s giving guys an opportunity to express themselves, make sure they play brave and play what’s in front of them, and not worry too much about what’s happening.
“This is a new group, we’ve had a brand new auction, we’ve got every player that we want to play different roles. One of those is a couple of guys to play in those six overs, you’ll be quite excited to see when it comes.
Whoever we put up there will be exciting, they’ll play a brave brand of cricket, dynamic at the top. That’s what we want them to do.”
