The Punjab Kings Head Coach Ricky Ponting looked shattered in the dugout after the loss against Royal Challengers Bengaluru at Dharamshala today. It has indeed been a tough second half of the season for
the Punjab Kings as they have lost 6 games on the trot. It will be a tough pill to swallow for Ponting and he might as well even pinch himself to know if it’s real. The PBKS fans were also in disbelief as they simply cannot believe what is happening to their side. Their playoff chances will be really complex from here on in the tournament.
Their qualification from here on in will be heavily dependent on the other teams and that 1 point they got due to the washout against KKR have come as a blessing in disguise. The only considerable edge they have in the tournament is that one point as many of the teams will be stuck on the 14-point mark. Ricky Ponting will have to take time and reflect on what went wrong for them as this isn’t the same Punjab Kings that was there in the first half of the tournament.
Ricky Ponting sitting alone in the dugout dejected. pic.twitter.com/N0aZjc3sIA
— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) May 17, 2026
PBKS suffer sixth straight defeat leaving Ricky Ponting and side dependent on others
The Royal Challengers Bengaluru has been the best team in the tournament and it was proven once again today. The kind of balance they have in the squad is absolutely unmatched as even the absence of their skipper, Rajat Patidar didn’t affect them much. Venkatesh Iyer played a brilliant knock of 73 off just 40 balls and helped RCB put a total of 222 on board after the 20 overs. RCB’s innings wasn’t dominated by one or two batters but rather it was more of a collective performance with excellent knocks by Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal and Tim David as well.
The Punjab Kings got off to a disastrous start as they lost both their openers early in the innings with Bhuvneshwar Kumar casting his usual opening spell in the powerplay. Rasikh Salam got the better of the PBKS skipper Shreyas Iyer with almost a similar delivery from that of Shardul Thakur to get rid of Shreyas in the previous match. There was a fightback towards the end of the innings led by Shashank Singh and Marcus Stoinis but there was just a bit too much to do. Josh Hazlewood and Rasikh Salam bowled exceptional overs at the death to put the final nail in the coffin.
One thing is for sure, Punjab Kings will need the other results to go their way as the maximum they can reach is just 15 points. Teams like Rajasthan Royals and Chennai Super Kings still can go ahead of the Kings and that will be something that is haunting for the Punjab Kings. All that Ricky Pontinga and his men can do will be to win against LSG and hope for the best to happen.
