As per ESPN Cricinfo, Punjab Kings (PBKS) have fired head coach Trevor Bayliss and head of cricket development Sanjay Bangar ahead of the next season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). In regard to the article, it has come to light that these measures were undertaken not long ago by the board over franchise, including all four co-owners. This shift is also in line with the franchise’s continued effort to change its coaching personnel. Earlier this month, Punjab Kings announced Ricky Ponting as their head coach. Bayliss joined the franchise as head coach after IPL 2022 while Bangar was appointed in December 2023. Even, the Kings who have not won any IPL title so far adopted the eighth position in 2023 and the ninth position in the season prior to that.
Strangely enough, Bangar’s first affiliation with Punjab Kings happened to be as a head coach from 2014 to 2016 when he later served as the assistant coach for the Indian side.
He also worked with Royal Challengers Bangalore in 2021 as a batting consultant and then got elevated to the position of a head coach. However, in December 2023, he was back in Punjab kings.
Bayliss replaced Anil Kumble, former Indian captain, who was the head coach between 2020 and 2022.
Punjab Kings have struggled with finding a winning formula for more than a decade now and have had to make coaching changes fairly often. Kumble was the fifth coach whom the team had in five years, variously held by Sanjay Bangar (2014-2016), Virender Sehwag (2017), Brad Hodge (2018), and Mike Hesson (2019).
PBKS have recently appointed Ricky Ponting, the World Cup-winning coach from Australia, as the new head coach of the team.
“The biggest thing that I want to do at Punjab Kings is make everyone aware that it’s going to be a different place. We are not going to sit back and just accept mediocrity and finish down the bottom and have other people sit back and talk about the way the franchise is going. It is going to be more dynamic. And people are going to be talking about this team and this franchise in a different way than ever before,” Ponting said, as per quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
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