After winning their first six completed games in IPL 2026, Punjab Kings (PBKS) have lost six games in a row and no longer have playoffs qualification entirely in their hands. They will have to win their final league-stage game against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), and hope other results go their way too. On the eve of the game against LSG, PBKS head coach Ricky Ponting put their losses down to fine margins but conceded that they haven’t been at their best.

“We were exceptional for our first seven or six games,” Ponting said, “then we had that washout against Kolkata Knight Riders, and I think from that moment on we’ve just been a little bit off and as I said they’re small things. They’re one or two balls or they’re an over here and there that quite conceivably, we could have won another three or four games, but we’ve only got ourselves to blame for that. We’re in the situation that we’re in as a result of not playing at our best over the last few weeks, but we’ve also got a very good idea of what our best cricket looks like and what it is and what we have to do to win tomorrow, and that’s all we can focus on.”

Unlike PBKS, LSG come into the game with low stakes having already been eliminated from the playoffs race. However, that could work in their favour as they have little to lose. So Ponting wants PBKS to be “fearless and daring” in Lucknow.

“I mean they, Lucknow, going into tomorrow,” Ponting said, “apart from probably personal pride and pride for the franchise’s performance, they’ve really got nothing else to lose, so teams can be dangerous in that way. But we understand that, we know that, and that’s the way that I want my boys to play as well. I want us to be fearless and I want us to be daring, I want us to take the game on and not be worried about what might happen, the negative things that might happen in the game.

“It’s really important we focus on the positive things and what you can do as an individual player to make an impact on the game there and then.”

Despite being in a precarious position, PBKS are trying to stave off anxiety.

“The atmospheres remain very positive and very relaxed”, Ponting said. “I think the worst thing you can do in a situation like this is panic and worry about what tomorrow brings. You’ve just got to stick to what you know has worked for you in the past as a player and certainly as a coach and a group of coaches, that’s exactly what we’ve done. We’ve done our best to make sure that the environment’s stayed very positive and very relaxed and let the players just go about getting themselves prepared and ready for a game.”