Jaipur, May 28:Ā Punjab Kings have been on a roll this IPL season but head coach Ricky Ponting feels the side has not achieved anything yet, declaring that a play-off qualification in more than a decade is merely a job half done at this point.
Punjab Kings convincingly thrashed Mumbai Indians by seven wickets to ensure a top two finish in the play-offs and two chances to enter the final of the cash-rich league.
“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,” Ponting told JioHotstar in an interview.
“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,” Ponting said
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,” added the former Australian skipper.
Ponting was effusive in his praise for skipper Shreyas Iyer. The last time that the Ponting-Iyer duo were coach and captain, it was for the Delhi Capitals and had steered the franchise into its maiden final during the UAE leg in COVID times.
“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,” Ponting said.