Picture Credit: IPL/X
Manoj Tiwary, the former Indian cricketer, accused Ricky Ponting, the head coach of Punjab Kings (PBKS), of bias towards foreign players during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025. The 39-year-old alluded to the recent match of PBKS against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, which ended in no result, to make the allegation, and he also ended up claiming that the Kings won’t be able to win the IPL 2025 title because of it.
Notably, during the PBKS innings, the two overseas all-rounders Glenn Maxwell and Marco Jansen were sent ahead in the batting order at number four and five instead of two Indian players Nehal Wadhera and Shashank Singh, who have performed well in the IPL 2025. Maxwell and Jansen were dismissed cheaply while striking it at less than 100 strike-rate, while the likes of Wadhera and Singh had to sit out the PBKS innings, which ended up at 201/4 thanks to the fifties from openers Prabhsimran Singh and Priyansh Arya.
PBKS have won five and lost only three out of nine matches in IPL 2025 under Ricky Ponting
In the run chase, Kolkata Knight Riders were 7/0 in one over before the rains arrived at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata, and the match ended up as a no result. Following that, Manoj Tiwary took to his official X account, and wrote, “My gut feeling says that Punjab team will not be able to win the #IPL trophy this season because what I saw today when they were batting was, the coach didn't send Indian inform batters Nehal Wadhera and Shashank Singh, instead he trusted his foreign players to deliver”.
“But they couldn’t and clearly showed lack of confidence in Indian players down the order. If he persist in this way then the title is far from them irrespective of there qualification in top two. #KKRvsPBKS,” he added. Moreover, under Ricky Ponting’s coaching, PBKS have played exceptionally well during their IPL 2025 campaign, winning five and losing only three out of nine matches thus far.
With that, Punjab Kings are firmly in the hunt to make the IPL playoffs for the first-time in 11 years, and the last time in 2014, they ended up playing the final of the tournament, losing to KKR in a last-over thriller.
