Punjab Kings, led by Shreyas Iyer, are on cloud nine after they became the first team to qualify for the IPL 2025 playoffs, marking their best season since 2014, when they finished as runners-up to Kolkata Knight Riders.

Coach Ricky Ponting, however, has warned “we have not achieved anything yet.” This season, Ponting is determined not to witness a repeat of the night of June 1, when PBKS suffered a 3-wicket loss to KKR.

Punjab Kings will play in Qualifier 1, which means they will have two shots at making it to the final if they lose the first qualifier. PBKS sealed their playoff spot as table toppers with a convincing 7-wicket win over Mumbai Indians in Jaipur on Monday.

Speaking about the campaign so far, Ponting said only half of his vision has been realised.

“I’m obviously very pleased for the group,” Ponting told the host broadcasters after the match.

“It’s a lot of hard work that goes into being able to achieve something like this as a team. I think it’s pretty obvious to see that this is a really talented team that are all on the same page and heading in the same direction. I mean yeah, it’s a great achievement till now but really, if you look back, we haven’t achieved anything yet. That’s the one thing I’ve been saying to the players since the moment we qualified,” he added.

Qualifier 1 will be played on Thursday, where PBKS will hope to leverage the crowd support and book a place in the final. “The vision for me was always to finish in the top two, and we’ve got there now. It’s a really happy group and we’ve enjoyed our time in each other’s company for the last ten weeks, but we’ve got another week to go yet,” said Ponting.

Ponting also heaped praise on Iyer. “I was pretty keen to work with him [Iyer] again. It was pretty obvious how much money I was willing to spend on him at the auction. We had a great working relationship in Delhi, we made a final in Delhi under his captaincy. I’ve known him as a person and as a player for a long time. He’s a quality person and when you’ve got quality people around your team, when you’re trying to make a difference and you’re trying to change culture, that’s what you need. If you spoke to the players individually, I think every single one of them would give Shreyas a great rap because he has spent a lot of time with them,” Ponting said.

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