Ricky Ponting has revealed he will not consider any approach to become England’s white-ball coach as the Australia great considers his coaching future in the IPL and around the world.
The recent departure of Matthew Mott as England’s white-ball coach has left a vacancy in one of the most highly-sought roles in world cricket and a host of former players and leading coaches – including Ponting – have already had their name linked to the job by cricket media.
Ponting turned down approaches from England to coach their Test side prior to Kiwi Brendon McCullum accepting the job, and the Australia legend recently finished a seven-year tenure in charge of the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League.
But Ponting hosed down any links to the job when speaking with host Sanjana Ganesan on the most recent episode of The ICC Review, revealing he currently has too much on his plate despite the recent departure from Delhi.
“No, I wouldn’t ever consider doing that actually,” Ponting remarked when asked if he would consider the England white-ball coaching position.
“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 revealed on The ICC Review earlier this year that he had some informal discussions related to the India head coaching role Gautam Gambhir recently accepted in place of Rahul Dravid, and the Australian remains keen to continue adding to his impressive coaching resume.
The three-time ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup winner just completed a successful tournament in the USA as the title-winning coach of the Washington Freedom in Major League Cricket and has another year on his contract there to transpire along with his various television and commentary roles around the world.
Ponting is also hoping to make a return to IPL coaching.
“I’d love to coach again in the IPL,” he stated.
“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 is expecting Delhi to take a different approach when selecting their next coach, with the Australian believing the franchise will likely appoint a local to the job.
“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,” Ponting said.
“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.”
