“Had Couple of Conversations”: Ricky Ponting On Being Approached For Team India Coaching Job | Cricket News

The new era of Indian cricket has begun under coach Rahul Dravid and new full-time T20I skipper Rohit Sharma. India started their journey under Dravid with a win over New Zealand in the first T20I of the three-match series on Wednesday in Jaipur. Meanwhile, former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting has revealed that he was approached for Team India head coach’s position during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 but after giving it some thought he decided to turn it down realising the nature of the job and his time management.

“I had a couple of conversations with some people during the IPL about it (the head coach position). The people I spoke to were pretty hell-bent to find a way to make it work. The first thing I said was that I can’t give that much time, that means I can’t coach in the IPL,” said Ponting on Grade Cricketer’s Podcast.

The two-time World Cup-winning captain was also surprised to see Rahul Dravid taking up the head coach’s job citing his family life and young kids.

“Actually, I’m surprised that Dravid has taken it up as well. There was a lot of chat about how happy he was in the Under-19 role he had. I’m not sure about his family life but I’m sure he has got young kids. So, I’m surprised that he took it but as I said, the people I spoke to were sure they got the right person so they were probably able to get Dravid to do it,” he said.

The former Australia skipper is currently the head coach of the IPL team Delhi Capitals. During the podcast when the legendary cricketer was asked about his future contract with Delhi Capitals, he confirmed that he will be with the franchise next year.

“I am pretty sure I will be at Delhi next year. I have loved the last four years when I was there. We had a great time together and some of the young players with whom I had got a chance to work with were exceptional and really good people. Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Avesh Khan, and all these guys have really turned into exceptionally good IPL players and some of them turned into really good international players as well,” said Ponting.

Commenting on the mega auction next year, Ponting said that the franchise will try to retain a majority of the players from the current pool but he believes that it will be a big challenge.

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“With the retention stuff we can only keep four players and I think we had around 24 or 25 players in the squad last year. We will try to bring the majority of those guys back with us ideally but it’s gonna be a challenge as well. With the retentions and two new teams, you can guarantee that they are talking with Iyer (Shreyas), they are talking to Pant (Rishabh) and they are trying to secure these guys and lock them in as generational franchise players. It’s up to me and Delhi franchise to make sure that they don’t get their hands on them,” he added.

Delhi Capitals finished third in the IPL 2021 and they made it to the play-offs for the third consecutive season, having finished runners-up in 2020.