Inglis thrives with promotion as Ponting wins Aussie coach battle

Josh Inglis made the most of his surprise promotion to No.3 with a blistering cameo to help his Punjab Kings to a dominant 37-run win over Justin Langer's Lucknow Super Giants.

The West Australian cracked his best IPL score to date, hitting four sixes in his 14-ball 30 alongside opener Prabhsimran Singh's 91 off 48 balls to fire Punjab to 5-236 in Dharamshala on Sunday night.

Singh's fourth half-century of the season included seven sixes and six fours as captain Shreyas Iyer also contributed 45 off 25 balls with two sixes.

Lucknow's chase finished at 7-199 despite Ayush Badoni's 74 off 40 balls, with their Aussie opener Mitch Marsh caught for a five-ball duck.

Inglis has batted mostly in the middle order after assuming the wicketkeeping duties from Singh six games ago, with Punjab head coach Ricky Ponting revealing it was skipper Iyer's idea to put the right-hander up the order.

"Shreyas thought on that sort of pitch against that bowling attack that it'd be the right thing if a wicket fell early to send Inglis in," Ponting said post-match.

"We felt that Mayank (Yadav) would bowl early on, and if you look at the way he bowls, he generally bowls reasonably short and that's one of Inglis' great strengths, as you saw, those pull shots were pretty amazing straight away.

"It was probably a surprise call for LSG to see him go out and it paid off for us. We were (66) at the end of the Powerplay and all the momentum was going with us."

Inglis took full toll on Yadav's first over, launching three consecutive sixes over the leg side to get his side off to a rapid start.

Kings left-armer Arshdeep Singh (3-16) then took three wickets in the Powerplay, including Marsh, as Lucknow's chase faltered from the outset.

The win strengthened Ponting's side's hold on second spot, with seven wins from 11 games giving them 15 points, one behind ladder-leaders Royal Challengers Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, the Super Giants' playoff hopes took a blow, with Lucknow now seventh with five wins and six losses, four points behind Gujarat Titans in fourth with three games to play.

Earlier, Kolkata Knight Riders beat Rajasthan Royals by one run to keep their own top four bid alive.

Stand-in skipper Riyan Parag smashed five sixes in one over but still finished on the losing team as Rajasthan's chase fell agonisingly short.

Parag hit eight sixes overall in his 45-ball 95 as Rajasthan finished on 8-205 from their 20 overs with Varun Chakravarthy (2-32), Harshit Rana (2-41) and Moeen Ali (2-43) taking six wickets between them.

That was after Andre Russell's 57 not out off 25 balls propelled Kolkata to 4-206.

Needing 22 off the last six balls, Rajasthan impact substitute Shubham Dubey reduced it to three off one but was run out on the last ball trying to take the game to a Super Over.

The narrow win keeps Kolkata in the playoff race, sitting sixth on the standings with five wins in 11 games.

Rajasthan's ninth loss of the season from 12 games has them languishing in eighth on sixth points, already eliminated along with Chennai Super Kings.

Australians at IPL 2025

Chennai Super Kings: Nathan Ellis ($365k)

Delhi Capitals: Mitch Starc ($2.15m), Jake Fraser-McGurk ($1.65m)

Kolkata Knight Riders: Spencer Johnson ($510k)

Lucknow Super Giants: Justin Langer (coach), Mitch Marsh ($623k)

Punjab Kings: Ricky Ponting (coach), Marcus Stoinis ($2m), Glenn Maxwell ($770k), Mitch Owen ($550k), Josh Inglis ($475k), Aaron Hardie ($228k), Xavier Bartlett ($146k)

Royal Challengers Bengaluru: Josh Hazlewood ($2.29m), Tim David ($547k)

Sunrisers Hyderabad: Pat Cummins ($3.7m), Travis Head ($1.2m), Adam Zampa ($440k)

2025 IPL standings

Team	Matches played M	Wins W	Losses L	Ties T	No results N/R	Net Run Rate NRR	Deductions Ded.	Total points PTS
1 Punjab Kings KXI	14	9	4	0	1	0.372	0	19
2 Royal Challengers Bengaluru Men RCB	14	9	4	0	1	0.301	0	19
3 Gujarat Titans GUT	14	9	5	0	0	0.254	0	18
4 Mumbai Indians MI	14	8	6	0	0	1.142	0	16
5 Delhi Capitals Men DEL	14	7	6	0	1	0.011	0	15
6 Sunrisers Hyderabad SUN	14	6	7	0	1	-0.241	0	13
7 Lucknow Super Giants LSG	14	6	8	0	0	-0.376	0	12
8 Kolkata Knight Riders KKR	14	5	7	0	2	-0.305	0	12
9 Rajasthan Royals RAJ	14	4	10	0	0	-0.549	0	8
10 Chennai Super Kings CSK	14	4	10	0	0	-0.647	0	8

Legend

M: Matches played

W: Wins

L: Losses

T: Ties

N/R: No results

NRR: Net Run Rate

Ded.: Deductions

PTS: Total points