Australian great, Ricky Ponting has shed some light on why he turned down the world’s richest cricket board’s offer to be the head coach of the Indian side following the end of Rahul Dravid’s tenure. Ponting, who recently completed his IPL 2024 stint with Delhi Capitals, revealed that he was approached with “a little one-on-one conversation” by the officials midway through the IPL 2024.
During his recent interaction with the International Cricket Council (ICC), Ponting opened up that though he would love to be part of the senior men’s side as the coach, it requires some rigorous commitment to be on the road throughout the year.
“I’ve seen a lot of reports about it,” Ponting told the ICC when asked whether he was approached by the BCCI for the coaching role. “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.”
Taking up the role of head coach with Team India will require Ponting to quit his coaching duties with the Delhi Capitals, as it involves the conflict of interest issue as per the BCCI’s rule book. Moreover, the coach has to be on the road for close to 10 months a year.
“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.”
The former World Cup-winning captain added that his present lifestyle won’t allow him to be involved with a contract that requires massive commitment.
“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.”
Besides Ponting, BCCI has also approached the likes of Justin Langer, Stephen Fleming, Mahela Jayawardene and Gautam Gambhir to get to know about their interest in taking up the head coach’s contract.
“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 laughed.
“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.”
Ricky Ponting has been around the IPL for about seven years now. Earlier he was involved with Mumbai Indians, before moving to Delhi Capitals (DC) as their head coach.
He had a mixed outing this season with his side – Delhi Capitals – narrowly missing the IPL 2024 playoff qualification. The team managed to win seven matches and lost as many in the league stages and finished sixth in the points table.
Under Ponting’s watchful eyes since 2018, Delhi has made it to the playoffs three times, which includes a solitary IPL final appearance in 2020. In the last three seasons, Delhi hasn’t gone past the league stages due to their underwhelming show.
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