Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting with team captain Rishabh Pant in IPL 2024. (File/DC)
Ricky Ponting has revealed that the Board of Control for Cricket in India had approached him to be the head coach of the Indian cricket team. However, the Australian cricket legend turned down the offer because it did not “fit into his lifestyle right now”.
Indian cricket board is on the lookout for a new coach to replace Rahul Dravid, whose contract ends after the T20 World Cup in USA and the Caribbean next month. Dravid’s contract had originally ended after last year’s Cricket World Cup. hosted by India. But Dravid and his staff were given an extension till the T20 World Cup by the BCCI.
“I’ve seen a lot of reports about it (him being offered a job by BCCI),” Ponting, who is currently working as a head coach of the Delhi Capitals, told the ICC. “Normally, these things pop up on social media before you even know about them, but there were a few little one-on-one conversations during the IPL, just to get a level of interest from me as to whether I would do it.”
“I’d love to be a senior coach of a national team, but with the other things that I have in my life and wanting to have a bit of time at home… everyone knows if you take a job working with the Indian team you can’t be involved in an IPL team, so it would take that out of it as well.
“Also, a national head coach is a 10 or 11-month of the year job, and as much as I’d like to do it, it just doesn’t fit into my lifestyle right now and the things that I really enjoy doing,” he said.
“I’ve seen a few other names thrown about as well. Justin Langer’s name got thrown in yesterday, Stephen Fleming’s name has been thrown about a little bit,” Ponting noted. “Gautam Gambhir’s name has been thrown around a little bit the last couple of days as well. But I think it’d be unlikely for me just on the reasons that I’ve given there.”
Ponting’s son urged him to take up India offer
Ponting also revealed that when he told his son Fletcher about the offer, he encouraged him to take it up so that they could move to India for a few years.
“My family and my kids have spent the last five weeks over at the IPL with me and they come over every year and I had a whisper to my son about it, and I said, ‘Dad’s been offered the Indian coaching job’ and he said, ‘Just take it dad, we would love to move over there for the next couple of years’” Ponting, whose family has travelled to India as he coached DC. “That’s how much they love being over there and the culture of cricket in India, but right now it probably doesn’t exactly fit into my lifestyle.”
It’s interesting to note that Ponting was also approached by the BCCI before the job went to Dravid.
“I had a couple of conversations with some people during the IPL about it (the India head coach’s position). The people that I spoke to were pretty hell-bent on finding a way to make it work,” Ponting had told ‘The Grade Cricketer’ podcast in 2021.
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