Former India player turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra has said that the Punjab Kings (PBKS) could face difficulties while arranging an ideal playing combination for the rest of the IPL 2025 if Josh Inglis and Marcus Stoinis are unavailable. He also stated that they could also face issues because of their home games being moved to Jaipur. However, with 15 points from 11 games, PBKS are placed third on the IPL 2025 points table as well.
In a video shared on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “Josh Inglis and Marcus Stoinis’ return is hanging in the balance as of now. If both don’t come, there will be slight problems in the combination. However, I am still keeping my fingers crossed for Punjab that all things continue to go fine when the season is going good this year.”
“They had two home games and one away match left. They had home games against Delhi and Mumbai, and the away match was against Rajasthan. Jaipur has been made their new home. They had to play a game against Rajasthan there in any case, but the Delhi and Mumbai matches will also be in Jaipur and not in Chandigarh or Dharamsala,” Chopra again shared.
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“The pitch there might trouble them slightly. It’s not a pitch this team would like where the ball comes nicely onto the bat. The ball stays slightly low here, and it’s not that good for batting. Only Vaibhav Suryavanshi hit a lot. In fact, a lot of runs were scored in that match, but we have seen many times that the ball skids and stays low there. Not ideal for them,” he further added.
However, Aakash Chopra also said that the Mumbai Indians (MI) will get the help because of their IPL 2025 away game against the Punjab Kings being moved to Jaipur as well.
“Mumbai’s match against Punjab was supposed to be played in Dharamsala. Now that will be played in Jaipur. I think it will suit Mumbai because Mumbai’s bowling is exceptional, and they beat RR very one-sidedly when they went to that ground recently. So they won’t mind. It might not be a bat vs bat contest, and too many runs might not be scored,” Aakash Chopra concluded.
