A few days ago, the Delhi Capitals (DC) parted ways with their head coach, Ricky Ponting before the 2025 season in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Now, Punjab Kings (PBKS) are almost certain to take the same route, ending the relationship with their head coach Trevor Bayliss, whose two-year contract with the team has ended.
Punjab Kings end this 2024 season of the 20-over format, at the penultimate position among the 10 teams, with just five wins in 14 games, at a net run rate of -0.353. They started quite poorly in that edition with just a couple of wins in their first eight games.
It was the same story for them in 2023, where they finished their campaign at the eighth position in the points table, with six wins, at a net run rate of -0.304. The middle phase of the competition didn’t go in their favor as they continued to come up with poor results.
Punjab Kings to hire an Indian coach
The sources have confirmed that Punjab Kings is looking for an Indian coach to guide the team, which has been the cheat code for many other franchises in this tournament, Whether they could get the option only remained to be seen.
It has been known that the team is considering several options with one of them being Sanjay Bangar, who was previously with the franchise in the head coach role and is currently their director of cricket development. He could be a potential candidate for the team’s head coach role.
No such confirmed decision has been made on the prospect. They had a scheduled meeting for July 22 which later didn’t take place. The franchise is believed to make a broadened search for their players and coaching staffs before the mega-auction later this year.
One of the remarkable achievements of an Indian coach was what Rahul Dravid did with the national team. Under his guidance, India reached the final of last year’s home Men’s ODI World Cup 2023, where they became the runners-up after losing to Australia. But they went a step ahead during the recent T20 World Cup 2024, where they got the better of South Africa in Barbados, during the final of the event, to end their 11-year wait for an ICC trophy drought.
The duo of Gautam Gambhir and Chandrakant Pandit as the mentor and head coach of the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) has done a terrific job for the success of the team in 2024, where they lifted their third title in the tournament.
Under the guidance of Ashish Nehra, Gujarat Titans (GT) too earned the same success, as they became the champions in their inaugural edition in 2022, and backed up being the runners-up in 2023. The Punjab Kings side is looking forward to the same success rate.
Even the likes of Delhi Capitals (DC) have provided a key role to the former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly who is the director of the franchise, while Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) has included their former wicket-keeping batter Dinesh Karthik in their coaching set-up for the upcoming season.
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Trevor Bayliss has had three different periods with various franchises- KKR, Punjab Kings, and the Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH), as the Shikhar Dhawan-led side will take the final call after their review meeting of last year’s performances.
The former England coach took over from Anil Kumble ahead of the 2023 season. It will be interesting to see how the story unfolds, and if they go for Bangar in the head coach role before the mega auction of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025.