The legendary Australian ex-captain and cricketer Ricky Ponting has stated he will not entertain any offers to coach England’s white-ball team while he mulls over his coaching career in the IPL and abroad. The recent departure of Matthew Mott as England’s white-ball coach has created a vacancy in one of the most sought-after posts in international cricket, and several former players and top coaches, including Ponting, have already been connected to the position by cricket media.
Before Kiwi legend Brendon McCullum accepted the position, Ponting rejected down offers from England to coach their Test team. The Australian icon recently wrapped his seven-year career as head coach of the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League.
However, Ponting shot off any connections to the position during an interview with host Sanjana Ganesan on the latest episode of The ICC Review, saying that even though he recently left Delhi, he already has too much on his plate.
“No, I wouldn’t ever consider doing that actually,” Ponting responded when asked if he would consider taking on the role of England white-ball coach.
“I’m on record saying that international jobs for me right now are not really where my life is at as there’s just so much more time taken up with an international job. I’ve got other commitments as well, with my TV work and things that I do and also trying to balance that out with having a decent amount of home time, which I haven’t had much of the last couple of years anyway. Coaching other international teams is one thing, coaching England for an Australian is probably something slightly different, but right now there’s sort of enough on my plate as I’ve got a bit more coming up in the next couple of months in the UK. Australia’s got some white-ball stuff coming up over there which I’ll go and commentate, so no, right now if my name was on the list they can actually take it off.”
Ponting stated on The ICC Review earlier this year that he had some informal conversations about Gautam Gambhir‘s recent acceptance of the India head coaching position, which Gambhir took over from Rahul Dravid. The Australian coach is still eager to add to his impressive coaching background.
The three-time winner of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup just wrapped up an exciting competition in the United States as the Washington Freedom’s Major League Cricket team’s champion coach. He still has one more year left on his contract to play in Major League Cricket in addition to his numerous television and commentary gigs around the globe.
Ponting intends to return to coaching in the Indian Premier League. He said, “I’d love to coach again in the IPL.”
“I’ve had a great time every year that I’ve been involved, whether that was in the early days as a player or the couple of years I had at Mumbai as head coach there. And then I’ve had seven seasons at Delhi, which unfortunately didn’t really work out the way that I would have wanted and certainly the way that the franchise would have wanted. I think me going there was all about trying to bring some silverware to the team and that didn’t happen.”
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Ponting expects Delhi to take a different approach when picking their next coach, with the Australian predicting the franchise will likely choose a local.
“They made it pretty clear that they wanted to head in a different direction with someone that could give them a bit more time and a bit more availability through the off-season, really more than anything to be able to spend a bit more time in India with a lot of the local players. I just couldn’t do that with the other stuff that I’ve got going on. I think what you’ll find is that they’ll probably end up with an Indian-based head coach. Certainly that’s some of the dialogue that I’ve had with them anyway. But I’m really thankful for my time that I had there, met some great people, worked with some great people and obviously worked with some great players through the years as well. So I wish them all the very best but as I said there could be a few opportunities for me popping up in the next couple of months and I’d love to be back coaching in the IPL again next season.” he said.
