Legendary Australia cricketer Ricky Ponting has said he will not consider becoming England’s next men’s white-ball coach, while also being hopeful in making a return to coaching in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Matthew Mott’s departure as England’s white-ball coach means there’s a hunt for a prominent person in the cricketing world to fill in the vacancy. Despite Ponting’s seven-year stint with the Delhi Capitals ending this year, the three-time World Cup winner is still not ready to be coaching full-time at the international level.
“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,” said Ponting in the latest episode of The ICC Review show.
Ponting, who also worked as Mumbai Indians head coach, recently coached the Washington Freedom side to winning the second season of the Major League Cricket (MLC) and has another year on his contract there with the team in USA. He is also hoping to have an IPL coaching contract ahead of the IPL 2025 season.
“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.”
Ponting also revealed the Delhi Capitals will take a different approach for choosing their next head coach, hinting that the franchise will look to get an Indian coach onboard. “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 concluded.
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