‘I Wanted To Work With Shreyas’: PBKS Head Coach Ricky Ponting After Buying Him At IPL 2025 Auction

Punjab Kings (PBKS) had a buzzing start to the TATA IPL 2025 Player Auction as they opened their account by acquiring the left-arm speedster Arshdeep Singh and the Indian batter Shreyas Iyer and the spin wizard Yuzvendra Chahal for the upcoming season.

PBKS used the Right to Match card for Arshdeep Singh and bought him for 18 crores to confirm his homecoming. Iyer was acquired by the team for Rs. 26.75 crore along with the Indian spinner Yuzvendra Chahal  for Rs. 18 crore. Australian all-rounder Marcus Stoinis has been snapped up by Punjab Kings for Rs. 11 crore while his fellow countryman Glen Maxwell returned to the franchise for Rs. 4.20 crore.

Shreyas Iyer is coming off fresh success as he became an IPL-winning captain last season. Having scored 3127 runs in his IPL career, Iyer has also led his team to IPL finals multiple times. 

'Elated to join the Punjab Kings family. I can’t wait to kickstart the season,” Iyer said while expressing his excitement ahead of the beginning of the new season.

With an aim to build a strong core that delivers success for years to come while also giving chances to youngsters, the new head coach Ricky Ponting, shared his thoughts on the inclusion of Shreyas to the team, “I think we knew Shreyas, Pant and KL Rahul were going to attract big money. I wanted to work with Shreyas. I've worked with him before and he is a great guy and a great player. He'll be a great leader for our team if we decide to go that way, which I'm pretty sure we probably will. And obviously, he was the championship-winning captain last year. So there are lots of great things about bringing him to Punjab.”

Arshdeep has only donned the red jersey ever since his IPL debut in 2019 and is super excited to play for Punjab yet again, “I am very happy to be back in Punjab. I hope we win the trophy this year.” In his five years of IPL career, Arsh has acquired 76 wickets at an economy of 9.03 for the Kings. He was also a part of the Indian Cricket Team that won the T20 World Cup Trophy in 2024, where he picked 17 wickets in 8 games, becoming the leading wicket-taker tied with Fazalhaq Farooqi.

While talking about getting back Arshdeep, Ponting said, “We had certain targets coming into the auction as every team does. Arshdeep was obviously the first one. He's been in our franchise for a number of years. I was really keen to get him back. Left-arm fast bowler, obviously, with a great skill set with the new ball and the old ball and, you know, one of India's leading wicket-takers in T20 cricket. So he was a perfect fit for us to come back into the Punjab Kings.”

Having been a part of IPL since 2013, Chahal has acquired a total of 205 wickets at an economy of 7.84. He also became the first Indian bowler to ever pick a five-wicket haul in T20Is when he registered the historic figures of 6/25 in 2017.

Expressing his excitement to join Shreyas and Arsh in the Punjab Kings squad, Chahal told Jio Cinema, “I have a great bond with Shreyas and Arshdeep and I am looking forward to playing with them. At the same time, I will get to learn a lot from Ricky Ponting. Let’s focus on winning the trophy Go Punjab.”

Ponting also discussed the thought process behind going for Yuzvinder Chahal and how the auctions are going for Punjab “Yuzi is the highest quality Indian spinner in the auction, so, we wanted to fill certain gaps with the best players we possibly could. And yes, we spent a bit of money to get there, but what we're trying to do is rebuild this franchise basically from the ground up and you can't do that without the best players. So, we felt so far that the auction's gone exactly the way we wanted. We've got a bit of work to do in the back half this afternoon, but that's the fun of it.”

He further added, “The thing with these auctions is you just got to be flexible and move with the way that the auction goes. So, we had certain targets coming in, we have hit those three targets so far. There are a few other guys who will come later in the auction as well that we will want to bring into our setup. I think that’s the great challenge of the IPL auction.”