Punjab Kings head coach Ricky Ponting has revealed the reason to release Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell ahead of the IPL 2026 auction. Maxwell had failed to deliver the goods in the previous season of the tournament, managing only 48 runs in six innings at an average of eight and a strike rate of 97.95.

The all-rounder was bought for INR 4.20 crore in IPL 2025 mega auction. Ponting admitted that they were not able to get the best of Maxwell in the previous season and have decided to let him go.

“Love Glenn and what he brings to the game. Unfortunately, last year we weren’t able to get the best out of him,” Ponting told Star Sports.

“Looking ahead to this season, we didn’t feel he would be part of our starting team, so we decided to release him,” Ponting added.

Maxwell has scored 2,819 runs at a strike rate of 155.15 in his IPL career.

Ponting also revealed that wicket-keeper bat Josh Inglis was not going to be available for the complete season and thus they have released him. The Mohali-based franchise decided to retain all-rounder Marcus Stoinis ahead of the auction.

The Mohali-based franchise had ended the previous season as the runners-up under Shreyas Iyer’s captaincy.

Punjab Kings released players: Josh Inglis, Aaron Hardie, Glenn Maxwell, Kuldeep Sen, Praveen Dubey

Punjab Kings retained players: Shreyas Iyer (captain), Nehal Wadhera, Priyansh Arya, Shashnk Singh, Pyla Avinash, Harnoor Pannu, Musheer Khan, Prabhsimran Singh, Vishnu Vinod, Marcus Stoinis, Marco Jansen, Amatullah Omarzai, Suryansh Shedge, Mitchell Owen, Arshdeep Singh, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Yash Thakur, Xavier Barlett, Lockie Ferguson, Yuzvendra Chahal, Harpreet Brar

Purse Remaining – Rs 11.5 Crore

Slots Remaining – 4