A new era started in Indian cricket when Team India squared off against New Zealand in the opening T20I of the three-match series on Wednesday (November 17). It was the first match for the Men in Blue under new T20I captain Rohit Sharma and new head coach, Rahul Dravid. Rohit has replaced Virat Kohli as the T20I captain.
Dravid has taken over the job from Ravi Shastri, who coached the team from 2017 to 2021. While Dravid always seemed to be a strong contender to take up the job, it looks like he wasn’t the only coach in the BCCI’s mind.
Speaking to The Grade Cricketer podcast, Australia great Ricky Ponting has revealed that he was approached by BCCI for the job, adding that those he spoke to were hell-bent to make it work. Ponting declined to job due to various reasons. He is associated with Delhi Capitals as their head coach and works as a part-time cricket expert back home.
“…But [in this job] I am living in India for 300 days a year. Yeah, look I had a couple of conversations with some people during the IPL about it. You know the people I spoke to were pretty hell-bent on trying to find a way to make it work because the first thing I said was ‘I just can’t give up that time, it will mean I can’t coach in the IPL, I’ll have to give up [Channel] 7 stuff in the summer, it just can’t work’. But it’s nice to have people thinking you might be able to do these big jobs but there’s a lot more to come with it than saying yes or no to a coaching gig,” the former Australia captain said.
Ponting has hinted that he was the first-choice contender for the top job. Dravid, who had worked with Team India twice before taking over the full-time offer, will keep the post for the next 2 years. He can also get a contract extension if the team does well under him.
As for Ponting, he continues to be associated with Delhi Capitals. The Delhi-based franchise has worked extremely well under him and made it to the 2nd stage of 3 out of the past 4 seasons. Ponting has also worked with Australian cricket team on certain occasions.
