As soon as Ricky Ponting became the head coach, this veteran lost his job at Punjab Kings, he had a special relationship with Virat Kohli.

Punjab Kings is in action mode ahead of the mega auction of IPL 2025. On September 18, the franchise appointed Ricky Ponting as its head coach. 8 days after he became the head coach, two veterans have lost their jobs. Director of Cricket Development Sanjay Bangar and head coach Trevor Bayliss have been removed from their posts by the franchise. According to a Cricinfo report, this decision was taken by the board members after a meeting, which included 4 co-owners of the team. Bangar has been in the role of batting coach for Team India. During this time he used to help Virat in his batting. Not only this, he has worked with Virat while being the batting consultant of Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2021.

Although the Punjab Kings team has not been able to qualify for the playoffs for the last 10 years. But in the last two years, the performance of the team has been very poor while Travis Bayliss was the head coach. In IPL 2024, the Punjab team was at number 9 on the points table and at number 8 in the previous season. Bayliss took over the command of the team as head coach in 2022. Bayliss replaced Anil Kumble, who was the head coach of Punjab Kings from 2020 to 2022.

On the other hand, Sanjay Bangar was the head coach of Punjab Kings from 2014 to 2016. After this, in 2021, he was the batting consultant of Royal Challengers Bangalore. Then RCB promoted him to head coach. At the same time, in 2023, he again turned to Punjab Kings where he was in the role of Director of Cricket. Even during Bangar's tenure, Punjab's performance was not very good.

7 coaches in 10 years

Preity Zinta's team last qualified for the IPL playoffs in 2014. However, they have not won the trophy even once. In the last 10 years, the franchise has changed 7 coaches in search of a winning formula for the team and the trophy. Sanjay Bangar was the head coach of the team from 2014 to 2016. In 2017, the team turned to legendary batsman Virender Sehwag.

In 2018, the coach was changed again, and this time Brad Hodge was given the responsibility. In 2019, Mike Hesson became the head coach. Anil Kumble was the head coach from 2020 to 2022, Trevor Bayliss was the head coach for the 2023 and 2024 seasons and now Ricky Ponting has got the responsibility. Despite changing so many coaches, the Punjab Kings have not been able to achieve success.