Australian great Ricky Ponting approached about coaching the Indian men’s cricket team

Only the timing is holding back Ricky Ponting from possibly coaching an international team after he was approached by India.

Ricky Ponting has revealed he was sounded out to take over as Indian men’s head coach following Rahul Dravid’s tenure, but knocked it back.

The Australian legend, who has served part-time and mentor roles with the Australian team since his retirement as a player in the past, said he “love” to coach a national team when commitments in his personal live allow.

That could put the Australian job, if only as coach of one of the white-ball teams should commitments be split in the future like in other countries, in what could be a possible coup for Cricket Australia.

Ponting, who coaches the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League, said he was asked about taking over as Indian coach which has been advertised by the BCCI Rahul Dravid’s contract expiring at the end of the T20 World Cup next month.

But the weight of the job, and the timing, made it easy to refuse.

“Normally these things pop up on social media before you even know about them, but there were a few little one-on-one conversations during the IPL, just to get a level of interest from me as to whether I would do it,” Ponting told the ICC website.

“I’d love to be a 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 … everyone knows if you take a job working with the Indian team you can’t be involved in an IPL team, so it would take that out of it as well.”

Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting (L) as an assistant to then Australian head coach Justin Langer in 2018. Picture: AFP

Ponting said the time spent on the road being a head coach remained one of the hardest issues to overcome for him to satisfy his want to take charge somewhere and that it “just doesn’t fit into my lifestyle right now”.

He said he can coach in the IPL because his family travel with him, but that couldn’t happen all year, even though his son advocated for him to take the Indian job.

“A national head coach is a 10 or 11-month of the year job, and as much as I’d like to do it, it just doesn’t fit into my lifestyle right now and the things that I really enjoy doing,”

“My family and my kids have spent the last five weeks over at the IPL with me.

“They come over every year and I had a whisper to my son about it, and I said, ‘Dad’s been offered the Indian coaching job’ and he said, ‘Just take it Dad, we would love to move over there for the next couple of years.

“That’s how much they love being over there and the culture of cricket in India, but right now it probably doesn’t exactly fit into my lifestyle.”