IPL 2026: 'They have given us the freedom’ — PBKS' Shashank Singh credits head coach Ricky Ponting, captain Shreyas Iyer

Punjab Kings (PBKS) all-rounder Shashank Singh has matured himself as a cricketer in his two years with the franchise so far. He has scored 350 or more runs in both 2024 and 2025 each, and has registered a strike-rate of more than 150 in each of the two seasons. And by now, he understands his team inside out, and knows what the team management expects from him.

During the IPL 2025 tournament, Punjab had several uncapped players that included the likes of Shashank Singh himself, along with Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, Musheer Khan, Nehal Wadhera, Vijaykumar Vyshak and Suryansh Shedge. Five of these players played in the final against RCB.

Shashank has credited Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting and captain Shreyas Iyer in instilling confidence and fearlessness in such players ahead of IPL 2026, and allowing them to play with freedom.

“A major credit goes to Ricky sir and Shreyas only, because of the way they back us. Because, obviously, you know that in Indian cricket, we play round the year. First-class cricket, the Mushtaq Ali Trophy and the Vijay Hazare Trophy, so obviously, maturity of players is never an issue even now, because we play so many matches a year, so the experience does come,” Shashank said on the JioStar Press Room on Friday.

He also noted Priyansh Arya and Prabhsimran Singh’s exceptional performances during India A’s unofficial ODI series against Australia A at home late last year. In the first unofficial ODI, the duo forged 135 runs for the first wicket, with Priyansh Arya (101) scoring a century. Prabhsimran Singh scored 56 in that match, and the duo’s knocks helped India A post 413/6 on the board. India A won that match by 171 runs.

“And plus the India A too, the way I told you about Priyansh Arya, Prabhsimran Singh, the way they played there as well. When you talk about the brand of cricket we are playing, why we are so fearless and why we don't think too much is because of Ricky sir and Shreyas, because they have given us the freedom,” Shashank added.

The 34-year-old gave an instance of how Ricky Ponting and Shreyas Iyer have instilled a positive attitude within the team, even when they lose matches.

“There are failures as well. I still remember a match against RCB in Qualifier 1, when we lost. We got out for 101 runs, we never spoke negative about anything. After that game also, we lost quite badly, I think by eight wickets we lost. But, we never spoke negative after that. We had a three-day off. We never spoke negative. It was always about the positive stuff, what can we do better as a team.

“So a major credit goes to those two guys (Ponting and Shreyas) because now also, in the pre-season camp, they only talk about the positive part. They only spoke about giving us the freedom that what exactly we want. And they will back us,” he added.

"When I joined the Punjab Kings camp for IPL 2026, the talk around the camp was regarding how we should do better than the last match we played. We never spoke about the final (Of IPL 2025), how we reached the final, how we played last year. Comparing to the last match which we played as a team (Which was the final of IPL 2025), we need to be a better team than that,” he said.

“We keep telling ourselves how we can improve as a group. It could be through practice sessions, it could be through gym sessions, or we could even have a team bonding session,” explained the right-handed batter.

Punjab Kings will begin their IPL 2026 campaign with a home game against Gujarat Titans (GT) in Mullanpur on Tuesday (31 March) as they look to go all the way and clinch the title.