Punjab Kings are set for big some changes ahead of IPL 2025 as they parted ways with head coach Trevor Bayliss and head of cricket development Sanjay Bangar.
Earlier this month, Punjab Kings appointed Australian great Ricky Ponting as their new head coach as they look to make some big changes in the coaching team with an aim to revive their fortunes in IPL.
PBKS have struggled in the last few years, failing to make it to the play-offs in the last 10 years. They last made it past the league stage in IPL 2014, when they finished runners up.
Overall, Punjab Kings have made it to the play-offs only twice in 16 seasons.
They appointed Bayliss as their head coach after IPL 2022, while Bangar joined the franchise in December 2023 as the head of cricket development but the team continued to struggled on the field as they finished ninth and eighth in the last two seasons in 2024 and 2023 respectively.
Bangar first took over as the head coach of the Punjab franchise from 2014 to 2016, after which he became the assistant coach for the Indian national team.
He then joined Royal Challengers Bangalore as their batting consultant in 2021 and was then promoted to head coach before he returned to Punjab Kings in 2023.
Bayliss replaced former India captain Anil Kumble, who held the head coach position from 2020 to 2022.
In their quest for a winning formula, Punjab Kings have frequently changed coaches over the past decade. Kumble was the fifth coach to lead the team in just five seasons, following Sanjay Bangar (2014-2016), Virender Sehwag (2017), Brad Hodge (2018), and Mike Hesson (2019).
New coach Ponting says it is high time that Punjab Kings did away with accepting 'mediocrity'.
"The biggest thing that I want to do at Punjab Kings is make everyone aware that it's going to be a different place. We are not going to sit back and just accept mediocrity and finish down the bottom and have other people sit back and talk about the way the franchise is going. It is going to be more dynamic. And people are going to be talking about this team and this franchise in a different way than ever before," Ponting said.
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