Punjab Kings’ skipper Shreyas Iyer on Monday thanked head coach Ricky Ponting for giving him the “freedom to go out and express myself” as the side secured a spot in Qualifier 1 of IPL 2025 with a convincing seven-wicket win over Mumbai Indians. Iyer joined PBKS after leading Kolkata Knight Riders to their third IPL title last season and made an immediate impact, guiding the Punjab team to its first playoffs since 2014. “The camaraderie has been there for the past few years between Ricky and me. He gives me a lot of freedom and lets me be decisive on the field. All these things have culminated in a great way,” Iyer said at the post-match presentation ceremony. “Every individual stepped up at the right time. From the first game, we’ve been in the mindset of wanting to win despite the situation. Players have put their hands up when we were in tough spots. Kudos to the support staff and management too. “Ricky has been fantastic with player management. It’s important for me to get trust as well, and that happened with the early wins. I’ve had conversations with them too. You have to maintain good relationships throughout. I feel the dressing room has been top-notch,” he added. Iyer also praised Priyansh Arya (62 off 35 balls) and Josh Inglis (73 off 42) for their brilliant performances. “The way Priyansh started was fabulous. Young players are fearless and they tick the boxes in the nets. The effects of the preparation are now showing on the field. “Inglis is the only player whose position has been changing. Since he loves playing the new ball, I wanted him to play more deliveries. It worked wonders. We know he’s destructive and a big-match player with a great attitude,” he said. MI skipper Hardik Pandya believed they were 20 runs short of a winning score. “The way the wicket played, we were definitely 20 runs short. That happens, we’ve been playing really good cricket but couldn’t play our best today. “We were definitely 20 runs short. We could have capitalized either at the start or in the middle. We’ll figure it out,” he said. Pandya said it was a wake-up call for MI before heading into the playoffs. “IPL is like that, this franchise has won five trophies, it has always been tough. Anytime you take the foot off the accelerator, the other teams are also keen to win. The message would be simple, this was just a blip, learn from this and look forward to the knockouts,” he said. He said MI’s bowling unit was not clinical on Monday. “They really took on certain balls whenever we erred and I don’t think as a bowling unit we were clinical. We gave some balls which they capitalized on and at times, they played some good shots as well. “Overall, we were not up to the mark.” With PTI Inputs