Chennai, May 1 (IANS) Punjab Kings’ campaign in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 has suffered a major blow as allrounder Glenn Maxwell has been ruled out of the remainder of the season with a fractured finger.
“Glenn Maxwell has been ruled out of the remainder of the season due to a finger injury. We wish him a speedy recovery,” Punjab Kings posted on X.
The Australian allrounder, who fractured his right-hand finger, becomes the second big name to exit Punjab’s setup after Lockie Ferguson was sidelined earlier this month with a serious injury.
Maxwell, who was picked for Rs 4.2 crore at the last mega auction, had struggled with the bat this season — scoring just 48 runs in six innings and failing to cross double digits in his last four outings. However, he remained a useful option with the ball, picking up four wickets with his offspin. The injury, however, has now ended his campaign.
PBKS captain Shreyas Iyer had confirmed the blow at the toss of the match against Chennai Super Kings, calling it “unfortunate” and said the team hadn’t yet decided on a replacement. “We’re pretty strong in our mindset and the players we have outside of the playing XI. We’ve got a variety of match-winners, so we’re sticking with that,” he had said.
The franchise, however, has not announced the replacement as of yet.
Speaking after PBKS’ clash against Chennai Super Kings on Wednesday, head coach Ricky Ponting shed light on the team’s strategy around replacements and player rotation. “We will be signing some replacements at some stage,” he said. “We’ve got until our 12th game to name replacements, so we have a couple of games to go yet. With the squad we’ve got, we’re trying to find players from within anyway. Most bases are covered.”
Punjab are currently sitting second on the IPL 2025 points table, trailing only Royal Challengers Bengaluru. Despite the injury setbacks, their core remains intact, and Ponting revealed that the team is also looking at Indian domestic talent to fill the gaps.
“We’re having a look around at Indian talent as well. A couple of guys trained with us yesterday and they will travel with us to Dharamsala. We’ll have a closer look at them and they might end up with a Punjab contract going forward,” he said.
Ferguson’s injury had already left a hole in the bowling attack, and Ponting admitted that patience was a necessity given the lack of immediate high-quality replacements, especially with the Pakistan Super League (PSL) overlapping with the IPL window. “With the PSL happening at the same time, there’s not a lot of high-quality replacements out there, to be honest,” he said.
–IANS
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