Four of our uncapped players can play for India: Punjab Kings coach Ricky Ponting
MULLANPUR: Ricky Ponting, who is getting major credit for Punjab Kings' massive turnaround in the IPL after years of disappointment, feels their radical auction strategy and the performance of uncapped players allowed him to execute his coaching philosophy of playing "differently" this season.
Punjab Kings are in their first play-offs since 2014 but considering his world-conquering achievements, the Australian legend is not satisfied with finishing at the top of the league stage.
He has won the IPL title as player and head coach of Mumbai Indians but could not get his hands on the trophy while coaching the Delhi Capitals for seven season.
Before he signed up for the job at Punjab Kings, he made it clear to the owners that he wanted complete control over the running of the team.
The free hand given to him has produced instant results, starting from his auction strategy to retain only the uncapped duo of Prabhsimran Singh and Shashank Singh.
In an interview ahead of the IPL play-offs, Ponting covered all areas that got the franchise much-needed success.
Excerpts from the interaction.
This has been a massive turnaround for this team after years of under-performance. What would you put that down to?
When you say this team, it's really this franchise, it's not this team, this team is brand new.
Once I got the job, I wanted to make sure that things were different around this team, around this franchise and, we went with a slightly different passage into the auction with just retaining the two younger uncapped players and we copped a bit of criticism for that at the time.
People thought we got that strategy wrong, but I was very clear on the vision that I had where I wanted this franchise to go and we picked the appropriate players to give me the best chance of attaining the vision that I set out with.
So far it's been a good season. The fact that I think (in the) last game against Mumbai Indians, we had six uncapped players on our side, all of which are playing exceptionally good cricket.
This whole season so far hasn't been about qualification. We've talked a bit about giving ourselves the best chance to finish 1-2, and we know now that we've actually finished in first position on the table after the league stage.
I've got a good feeling. This group's been terrific and not just the 25 players, we've all been in this together.
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