After the thrilling win against Kolkata Knight Riders, Punjab Kings coach Ricky Ponting praised his captain, Shreyas Iyer, and backed him at no. 3. Quite candidly, Ponting said that an easy way to keep his job intact is to not shuffle Shreyas Iyer from his batting position, as, according to Punter, Shreyas is doing well. At the post match press conference, Ricky Ponting said, "Yeah, we've got a guy called Shreyas Iyer at number 3. If I want to stay in my job, I'm probably not going to move the captain. So as we all know, the captain sets the batting order. He's pretty happy at number 3 and he's been outstanding in the tournament. So you know we're always trying to find the right time in the game." In the six matches, Shreyas Iyer bulked 250 runs at a strike rate of 204.9. On the other hand, Glenn Maxwell's struggles continued with the bat. Even if he is managing a wicket or two, his awful batting is till a concern. However, Ponting seemed to have had a good backup reply for this too. He said, "It's not about numbers that these guys bat. It's about the right time that you can inject them into the game. So we've got good flexibility with our batting order. We've moved a few guys around already this season. As things go on, and we come up with a more settled side, there probably won't be guys moving around too much." Read also: IPL 2025: Emotional Ricky Ponting reveals how Chahal overcame injury scare vs KKR Why was Marcus Stoinis benched? An unexpected miss from the playing XI was Marcus Stoinis. Well, Ponting reasoned it, saying he wanted Josh Inglis instead. Although Inglis had a disappointing performance with the bat, scoring just 2 runs off 6 deliveries before being bowled by Varun Chakaravarthy, he made his presence felt behind the stumps. Speaking on the decision to bench Stoinis, Ricky Ponting explained that Inglis’s strong reputation against spin bowling gave him the edge for selection in this game. Ponting said, "Yeah, a tough decision to leave Stoinis out, you know, we wanted to bring Inglis into the side. Inglis is a noted player of spin that didn't probably look that way tonight, but he is a very, very good player of spin. His keeping is as good as anyone's in the world as well, and we wanted the matchups with the ball with Marco." He further added, "We wanted the matchups with the ball with Glenn Maxwell. So unfortunately, for Marcus Stoinis, it had to be him that missed out tonight, but then you go to a different venue, you know, in two days we're up in Bangalore against them up there. Who knows what combination we might come up with for that?" Notably, Shreyas Iyer will lead Punjab against Royal Challengers Bengaluru for their next match on April 18, at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru