Daily Times

SYDNEY: Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting might soon take over as the T20I coach for Australia with the focus on World T20 in 2020, which will be held Down Under. “I know Cricket Australia are looking down that path. I’ve been talking to CA for a little while about succession planning with coaching in the shorter forms of the game,” Ponting was quoted as saying by Cricinfo after being named one of three inductions to the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame “I’m on record saying I’m interested in doing the Twenty20 job for Australia if it came up and I can make it fit in and work. There’s a few things I just want to get ticked off from CA first as far as how my thoughts are on how we can become a better, more explosive, consistent team,” Ponting said,

“It’ll be interesting to see how coaching does go, it’s hard work on the players as we know, and CA have done a great job making sure Darren’s had a series off here and there just to keep him fresh. The hard thing, you look at what’s just happened in the last one day series, put all the eggs in one basket and get prepared for an Ashes series for so long and nail that, and then before you know it the one-dayers are upon you and we’re taking a similar group of players into that, that are probably a little bit tired and jaded and just having achieved something pretty special. England go the other way with a fresh group and a whole new lot of bowlers and a different team and they achieve the result they achieved.” he added. “What I’ve tried to do and the way things have worked out the last five years is just be around the T20 game. One thing I know where the tournaments are six or eight weeks maximum, I want to have as much family time as I can as well, that’s really important for me not to be on the road as much as when I was playing, I’ve got three children now under the age of 10. I’ll have some challenges there making it all work, as I have the last couple of weeks, my wife’s starting to feel the pinch again, having me on the road a bit. But that’s what I want to do and I really enjoy every moment of it,” the Tasmanian said. Ponting has also coached the Mumbai Indians and will be seen in the Delhi Daredevils dug out in the upcoming season of the IPL.

Published in Daily Times, February 11^th 2018.