The Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting has admitted that he and the franchise were going all-out on Shreyas Iyer during the IPL 2025 auction to ensure him not joining Delhi Capitals.

PBKS and DC were involved in a bidding war for Iyer before the batter was finally acquired by the former at a price of INR 26.75 crore.

Posting and Shreyas Iyer have worked with each other as head coach and captain for DC from the middle of 2018 to 2020. Their partnership was highly successful as DC qualified for the playoffs in 2019 and finished runners-up in 2020.

Ponting remained with DC until the 2024 season before parting ways after a seven-year run. Talking about PBKS’s strategy to buy Iyer, Ricky Ponting said, “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.”

“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.”

Shreyas Iyer has displayed his captaincy skills by leading the kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to their title IPL title in the 2024 season. Shreyas Iyer was appointed as PBKS skipper for the upcoming IPL 2025 season.

Ponting also spoke about spinner Yuzvendra Chahal going a lot more that what PBKS had orginally budgeted for before the IPL 2025 auction.

The franchise acquired Chahal for INR 18 crore after he was released by the Rajasthan Royals.

PBKS also used their Right-to-Match (RTM) option to bring back left-arm pacer Arshdeep Singh for INR 18 crores.

“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,” said Ponting.

PBKS have finished in the top four only twice in 17 seasons, leaving them desperate for a turnaround under a new coach and captain in Ponting and Shreyas Iyer.