A cozy evening in Dharamsala, a shirtless Instagram story and a rain break spent taking pictures of the mountains. It has been a loud week around the Kings of Punjab. Wednesday night at HPCA Stadium was anything but.
In the days leading up to their encounter with the Mumbai Indians, the talk surrounding the Punjab Kings went far beyond results and cricket. There was speculation about player fitness, reports of locker room unrest and talk of social media activity involving team members. The franchise has already publicly responded to some of them with the co-owner Preity Zinta urges people not to peddle “calculated misinformation“.
On Wednesday morning, before the buses left for the HPCA Stadium, Prabhsimran Singh posted a photo on Instagram. Standing by a quiet riverbank in Dharamsala with mountains in the background, shirtless, he posted an emoji of one hand raised to his lips, suggesting it was time to stop the noise. No label. No explanation.
Just a 25-year-old who spent much of the past week being discussed online as a cautionary tale about weight gain and late nights decided that a picture is worth a lot more than the words that are written about it.
On Wednesday night, Punjab Kings were in training. They arrived in good spirits. The session was scheduled to begin at 6:00 p.m., under skies that turned gray shortly after five. It started. Within 10 minutes the rain came.
What followed was, in its own way, one of the most impressive pictures of the Punjab Kings week. The players didn’t trudge back to the dressing room looking exhausted. They stood near the outfield of one of the most beautiful grounds in world cricket, the Dhauladhar range filling the horizon, taking photographs. From the mountains. From the ground. one from the other.
A leisurely evening punctuated by the weather quietly turned into something resembling a team comfortably settled in their own space.
NOTHING HAS CHANGED: GONSALVES
Punjab Kings have dropped to fourth place in the table. Courtesy: Reuters
Assistant bowling coach Trevor Gonsalves arrived at the pre-training press conference with energy. Four losses on the trot will do things to a coaching staff, but whatever it did to him was not visible.
“It’s like it was when we started,” he said when asked about the mood in the camp. “Nothing has changed in the locker room. We’re pretty sure of that.”
Punjab Kings started IPL 2026 with six wins on the trot. The team that built this run is the same team that has now lost four straight. Gonsalves’ point, unspoken but quite clear, was that a slump would not necessarily undo the fundamentals. Good sides lose patches. They identify what went wrong and try to fix it.
“There were some ups and downs, there were places where we needed to iron it out. And that’s what we did.”
Three matches remain – against Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Lucknow Super Giants.
He repeated it as if it deserved emphasis.
“Three games is a lot of games.
He said it with the forethought of someone who had obviously spent some time doing the math.
‘EVERY BLOGGER CAN PUBLISH ANYTHING’
Preity Zinta recently condemned fake stories on PBKS. Courtesy: Reuters
Then came the question he saw coming a mile away. The franchise responded to the storm on social media. Preity Zinta also responded. But how will the dressing room itself deal with it? Will any of this really work?
Gonsalves smiled slightly.
“I’ve been waiting for that question. He didn’t shy away from it.
“Any blogger and anybody can go up and put something on social media and there are thousands of people who agree with that.”
There was no real outrage in response, nor much interest in prolonging the subject.
“Honestly, we don’t care too much about what social media is saying. We only care about tomorrow’s game. We only care about cricket.”
The players, he added, barely needed coaching in this one.
“How the big players handle this situation is absolutely important. You don’t need anyone to teach them. They are big enough and they know how to handle themselves.”
The buzz surrounding the Punjab Kings was loud enough this week for the franchise to respond publicly, and it also clearly landed in the camp. But the players in this dressing room – Shreyas Iyer, Arshdeep Singh, Yuzvendra Chahal, Prabhsimran Singh – are no strangers to pressure or scrutiny. IPL seasons amplify both form and criticism in a way that few tournaments can.
But on Wednesday night in Dharamsala, the Punjab Kings did not look like a side consumed by either.
HOW PONTING DEALS WITH NOISE
Trevor Gonsalves praised Ricky Ponting for creating a healthy environment at PBKS. Courtesy: Reuters
The person Gonsalves credits most for setting that tone is the head coach.
Ricky Ponting, according to his assistant, has created an environment where players are aware of external noise without letting it dominate the dressing room.
“Ricky is a total professional when it comes to all of this. He knows he’s dealing with elite cricketers. It’s really great to see him handle it.”
Ponting, Gonsalves explained, is not adding to the noise by being the subject of every team meeting. It doesn’t even pretend it doesn’t exist.
“He doesn’t beat it, but he knows exactly how to deal with them. He makes them understand – you’re all a part of it.”
There is a line, Gonsalves said, between staying connected to the outside world and being consumed by it.
“Being too social media is neither good nor bad. There is a line and it has been drawn.”
The Punjab Kings take on Mumbai Indians on Wednesday – a side that has already been eliminated and has nothing to lose and therefore very little to worry about. It’s rarely a simple evening in the IPL.
The Punjab kings had already heard the noise. The franchise responded to this. The players have it in their own way too.
But on Wednesday night in Dharamsala, the focus inside the camp seemed to shift back to something simpler.
There is still cricket to be played. Three league games, two more nights in Dharamsala and little time for distraction.
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– The end
Issued by:
sabyasachi chowdhury
Published on:
13 May 2026 20:22 IST
