Punjab Kings have such a star batter in their opener Prabhsimran Singh that even coach Ricky Ponting has apparently been getting carried away about him<\/p>\n
A storm won the day in Kolkata on Saturday, but only after another thunderous demonstration of brilliance from an Indian batter who’s even got his Punjab Kings coach Ricky Ponting all a flutter with excitement.<\/p>\n
At least that’s how Ponting’s old Australia teammate Matthew Hayden gilded the lily from the TV commentary box while Prabhsimran Singh was treating everyone to an extraordinary display of big-hitting pyrotechnics at Eden Gardens.<\/p>\n
After they decided to bat, Singh smashed 83 off just 49 balls, featuring six sixes and six fours, joining his fellow Indian opener Priyansh Arya (69 off 35) in a 120 opening stand that took them less than 12 overs to blast out.<\/p>\n
It was another brilliant performance from the outstanding Singh, who was happy to play largely a support role to his fizzing younger partner until Arya’s dismissal prompted him to go ballistic off his last 17 balls which he clouted for 49 all around the ground with a panoply of exotic shots.<\/p>\n
They included treating the usually tricky slow bowling of Sunil Narine with unusual contempt, consigning the Trinidadian to one 22-run over. That was just one less than the enduring mystery spinner has ever conceded in a single over in T20s.<\/p>\n
Watching from the box, the admiring Hayden confided: “A very excited Ricky Ponting came up to me at the Kings’ first match in Ahmedabad and said ‘Haydos, I’ve found myself a beauty’.<\/p>\n
“Now Ricky Ponting rarely gets excited about too much, but he went, ‘this kid, he is just magic \u2013 he’s got dust and it’s covered in gold … just such talent and class’.”<\/p>\n
Indeed, it was all on display as Singh helped Punjab make 4-201.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately for Glenn Maxwell, he again missed out on another run-fest when coming in at No.4 with five overs to indulge in a bit of mayhem.<\/p>\n
Having struggled to seven off eight balls, Maxwell was bowled, beaten by a quicker, shorter one from Varun Chakravarthy and he looked the picture of frustration, having only compiled 48 runs in six innings this tournament, including five single-figure dismissals.<\/p>\n
Josh Inglis, a latecomer to the IPL party, fared a little better, helping the Kings get past the 200 mark with his unbeaten 11 off six balls at the death.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the match was then ruined when the rains came with the Knight Riders on 0-7, the storm blowing debris all over the stadium, with the ground staff having to hold down the covers with rocks until the inevitable abandonment as a ‘no result’.<\/p>\n
It left both teams with a point apiece, with Punjab up to fourth in the play-off places while defending champions Kolkata remained seventh.<\/p>\n
Australians at IPL 2025<\/p>\n
Chennai Super Kings: <\/strong>Nathan Ellis ($365k)<\/p>\n Delhi Capitals: <\/strong>Mitch Starc ($2.15m), Jake Fraser-McGurk ($1.65m)<\/p>\n Kolkata Knight Riders: <\/strong>Spencer Johnson ($510k)<\/p>\n Lucknow Super Giants: <\/strong>Justin Langer (coach), Mitch Marsh ($623k)<\/p>\n Punjab Kings: <\/strong>Ricky Ponting (coach), Marcus Stoinis ($2m), Glenn Maxwell ($770k), Josh Inglis ($475k), Aaron Hardie ($228k), Xavier Bartlett ($146k)<\/p>\n Royal Challengers Bengaluru: <\/strong>Josh Hazlewood ($2.29m), Tim David ($547k)<\/p>\n Sunrisers Hyderabad: <\/strong>Pat Cummins ($3.7m), Travis Head ($1.2m), Adam Zampa ($440k)<\/p>\n 2025 IPL standings<\/p>\n Legend<\/p>\n M: Matches played<\/p>\n W: Wins<\/p>\n L: Losses<\/p>\n T: Ties<\/p>\n N\/R: No results<\/p>\n NRR: Net Run Rate<\/p>\n Ded.: Deductions<\/p>\n PTS: Total points<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Punjab Kings have such a star batter in their opener Prabhsimran Singh that even coach Ricky Ponting has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4101],"tags":[1406,79,661,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-53924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-text","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114408204924294022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}