Ricky Ponting admits going ‘over budget for Shreyas Iyer’, reveals team he didn’t want PBKS captain to go – India TV

Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting will be working again
Image Source : BCCI/IPL Shreyas Iyer and Ricky Ponting will be working again together in the IPL, this time for Punjab Kings

Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting revealed that they were willing to go even higher to acquire their new captain Shreyas Iyer’s services even after going as far as Rs 26.75 crore to get him at the IPL 2025 auction. Iyer will reunite with Ponting as captain-coach after having worked with him in the same capacity in the past. Talking about the Kings’ auction strategy, Ponting said that he wanted a strong Indian core to rebuild the franchise from scratch.

“At the end of the day, it’s the Indian Premier League. It’s not so much about the overseas guys. The overseas guys create a lot of hype, they go for a lot of money or whatever. But as far as I am concerned, I need to bring right Indian players back into the team. So we start with Shreyas Iyer, who I’ve worked with at Delhi,” Ponting said on ‘The Howie Games’ Podcast.

Ponting admitted that they ended up paying more for Iyer and would have gone for more, but that would have dwindled their plans for the latter part of the mega auction while admitting that he didn’t want his previous team Delhi Capitals to bid for him.

“He [Iyer] went for more than what we expected. There was a team that I was bidding against that I was pretty keen to make sure that he didn’t go there,” Ponting added. Iyer’s former team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), whom he led to an IPL title last year, began the bidding with Kings being the other one. Punjab left the bidding at Rs 7 crore before the Capitals joined in. KKR dropped out at Rs 9.75 crore before Kings rejoined and didn’t leave. The Capitals went as far as Rs 26.50 crore before the Kings eventually got him.

The Kings began their auction with the first purchase in the form of the pacer Arshdeep Singh and then followed it up with Iyer and Chahal.

“Arshdeep went first, which was one of our players from last year. We had a chance to retain on 18 cr, he went for 18 cr so we locked him in. Next Shreyas was second. Then Yuzi Chahal, the leg-spinner. You talk about people and characters, he was a non-negotiable for me as well. We budgeted a certain amount for him and he went a lot above,” Ponting added.

Ponting mentioned that Chahal was the best spinner available in the auction and all three of their first purchases were non-negotiables and cost them INR 62.75 crore because of which they had to rethink their strategy for the rest of the auction.

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