The BCCI approached Ricky Ponting with the offer of India Men’s coaching role, but the former Australian captain turned the offer down.
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Rahul Dravid’s stint as the head coach of the India Men’s side for all three formats is set to expire after the 2024 T20 World Cup, to be played in June in North America. To find Dravid’s successor, the BCCI had asked for applications last week.
In the interim period, reports and rumours of several cricketers being approached had surfaced. Among them were Gautam Gambhir, Ricky Ponting, Stephen Fleming, and Justin Langer.
Speaking to ICC Review, Ponting confirmed that the BCCI had approached him with an offer, but he was unable to accept it “right now”.
“I’ve seen a lot of reports about it [him being approached by the BCCI]. Normally these things pop up on social media before you even know about them, but look, there was a few little one-on-one conversations during the IPL, just to get a level of interest for me as to do it.
“I’d love to be a national 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, even with my Channel 7 [where he is a commentator] work in the summer,” pointed out Ponting, explaining why it was a difficult ask.
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There was also a potential conflict of interest issue for Ponting, who is currently the head coach at the Delhi Capitals: “Everyone knows if you take a job working with the Indian team, you can’t be involved with an IPL team so it takes that out of it as well.”
But perhaps it was the demanding nature of the task that made him decide against taking it up, at least at this point: “A national head coach is a sort of 10- or 11-month-of-the-year job, and as much as I’d love to do it, it just doesn’t fit into my lifestyle right now and the things that I really enjoy doing. I think it’ll be unlikely for me just for the reasons that I’ve given you there.”
However, Ponting has not ruled out the possibility of taking up the role in future: “I had a whisper to my son about it the other day. I said ‘oh, dad’s been offered the Indian coaching job, what do you reckon?’ He said, ‘just take it, dad, we’d love to live over there for the next couple of years. That’s how much they love being over there and the culture of cricket in in India. But you know, right now it probably doesn’t exactly fit into my lifestyle … on a full-time basis.”
Ponting also spoke on the exact nature of the BCCI’s offer: “It was a very flippant sort of conversation that I had. I’m not sure if they’re looking for a coach of all three formats or looking for a Test match coach. It sounded to me like there was more of a talk around a red-ball coach. That’s about as far as the conversations went, but I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing.”
