Shreyas Iyer picked the perfect evening to score his maiden Indian Premier League (IPL) ton as he powered Punjab Kings to a comfortable seven-wicket win over the Lucknow Super Giants.
His unbeaten 51-ball 101 ensured Punjab remained in playoff contention, with the team now sitting fourth on the points table with 15 points.
“He’s a tremendous leader … He reads the game well,” said PBKS assistant coach Brad Haddin during the post-match press conference.
“There are two main things that I think I enjoy most about working with him. I think one thing is his care for his players. He shows a lot of care for his staff and all his players. And the other thing is his appetite for the big moment. He’s shown that tonight. He wanted to be the one to make the difference, and that’s what you want from your leaders, whether it’s for the IPL or for your country,” added the 48-year-old.
PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting, ahead of the game, lamented the team’s inability to close games. Haddin touched upon the topic post-game, saying his side’s victory in Lucknow was due to identifying the big moments to capitalize on.
“I think, as any coaching staff, you have to identify moments where we need to get better, and that’s what we’ve done. A lot of the games we lost went to the last over and a couple to the last ball, where we were close, but we just probably weren’t identifying those big moments as quickly as the opposition,” he said.
After six consecutive losses, PBKS managed to bounce back with a commanding win. However, the team now has to wait for the game between the Rajasthan Royals and the Mumbai Indians to know its qualification fate.
“There are a lot of scenarios now that can play out. But from where we were, we needed to find some rhythm and some form back in our game, and that’s what we did. It was important that we had to win the game. We had to play this game the way we did tonight under pressure to give ourselves an opportunity,” Haddin said.
“Now we have to wait for other results for us to go on, and that’s our own doing. But tonight we had to find a way to get out of that slump, and we did,” Haddin added.
Contrasting fortunes
While one captain delivered when it mattered, his counterpart had little to show for his efforts—either on Saturday or across a grueling season.
Rishabh Pant’s underwhelming season both as a batter and as a captain came to a close as LSG finished the season with eight points, languishing at the bottom of the table.
LSG’s Global Director of Cricket, Tom Moody, felt his captaincy and batting were correlated. “From a captaincy point of view, he’s found it challenging, obviously, and the results reflect that. And you have to wonder whether that is a pressure that is reflected in his performance with the bat,” he said.
“And certainly, when it comes to the leadership of the franchise, it’s something that we’ll be giving some very serious consideration to what it looks like in the future,” he added.
Published on May 24, 2026
