Ricky Ponting gets his man to coach the Hobart Hurricanes
Ricky Ponting has confirmed he is chasing an Aussie cricket superstar for the Hobart Hurricanes. SEE WHO >>
Tasmania
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THE sky is the limit for the Hobart Hurricanes says Tasmanian cricket legend Ricky Ponting with the top-shelf coaching panel he has assembled for BBL|12 and next on the hit-list could be Australia’s stunning opening batter David Warner.
Ponting spearheaded the search to find the Hurricanes’ new coach and after whittling down his search from “pages and pages of names” he is bullish about the future of the Canes under Jeff Vaughan and his BBL assistants, world-class strategist Darren Berry and Punter’s IPL bowling coach James Hopes.
At Friday’s announcement Ponting revealed he was “a long way down the track” in negotiations with Australia’s former Ashes and World Cup-winning coach Justin Langer.
However, that deal fell over when Langer opted to pursue other opportunities next summer.
It made sense to Ponting to pick Vaughan to create a seamless connection between the Tasmanian Tigers program and the Hurricanes.
“Everyone knew I was trying to get Justin Langer down here to coach the Hurricanes but when that didn’t happened Jeff was the obvious choice to coach the team,” Ponting said.
Vaughan will be no stranger to the Hurricanes set up, having worked as an assistant coach when he first moved to Tasmania at the start of the 2017-18 season.
In 2019, Cricket Tasmania made changes to the coaching structure of their men’s program, which saw Vaughan promoted to the role of head coach of the Tasmanian Tigers, working solely with the Tigers side of the program until he accepted a role as a part of the Australian men’s cricket team set up in mid-2021.
Vaughan returned to the Tigers head coaching role on a long-term deal earlier this year.
The Hurricanes newly appointed Head of Strategy, Ricky Ponting, said, that Tasmanian cricket was lucky to have someone of the calibre of Vaughan already heavily involved in the program.
“I know it’s been something that’s been much debated previously, but I am a strong believer in continuity between programs,” Ponting said.
“Whilst my role in strategy is solely related to the Hurricanes, I am also obviously passionate about the development of Tasmanian cricket as a whole, and with an individual like Jeff already so involved with and committed to the organisation, I think it’s important that we invest in the highly competent people we already have, which in turn will see us investing further in Tasmanian cricket.
“Jeff Vaughan is very highly rated across Australian cricket after his recent stint in the Australian coaching system. Jeff has fantastic people management skills, and we are confident he can bring our group together and mould them into a winning team.”
Ponting also said Australian superstar David Warner had been talked about as a potential signing for the franchise.
“We’ve thrown a lot of names around because there’s a lot of guys you’d love to have in your set-up and he’s one of the names,” Ponting said.
“If you look at the top-order guys we’ve got, there’s Short, Wade, McDermott so there are probably other slots that we’d think about more but if you were able to land someone like David Warner into your squad…the thing I know about him is that if it was him we could bat him pretty much anywhere because he has batted in different slots in T20 cricket in the past.
“We will keep pursuing these guys and for me it’s pretty important we get that done asap, and that’s not just the Aussie guys.
“We’ve got to get onto making contact with the other guys we are thinking about contracting as well as soon as we possibly can.
“When we come out of the draft I’m sure we are going to have a terrific squad of players.”
Assisting Vaughan will be two other names synonymous with cricket in Australia; Darren Berry and James Hopes.
Victorian-born Berry played first class cricket for both Victoria and South Australia as a wicketkeeper-batter, before turning his hand to coaching, having held roles for both states he played for, as well as in the BBL, IPL, PSL and the Hundred.
Former Australian and Queensland all-rounder, Hopes, has held numerous coaching roles in Australia, as well as previously working as bowling coach with the Delhi franchise in the IPL.
“Darren and James are two very well-respected individuals within the Australian cricket fraternity, and I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with them both previously,” Ponting continued.
“From just looking at their resumes, you can see they are two very experienced T20 coaches, and I believe that they both have the T20 smarts to add enormous value to the Hurricanes drive for success.”
Cricket Tasmania CEO, Dominic Baker, said he was thrilled at the key decisions that had been made and relationships Ponting had built in such a short space of time since his appointment.
“We hired Ricky for not only his knowledge of the T20 game, and the cache and contacts he brings to our club, but also for an objective perspective as to where we can look for improvement from the past few seasons. Based on this, we are confident that we will have the optimal off-field line-up in the League for this season.
“Ricky’s involvement with the match day coaching staff will not only facilitate their own professional development through his support and mentoring but will see us having very experienced people at the helm come match day.”
No Ponting-Langer dream team for Hurricanes as Hobart turns to Tiger
THE coaching future of Justin Langer remains a mystery with the Hobart Hurricanes set to unveil its set up for BBL12 without the former national coach.
The Hurricanes dream team of Ricky Ponting and Langer remains just that with the Mercury understanding Tigers coach Jeff Vaughan will be announced as Hobart coach on Friday.
Langer resigned from the men’s national coaching role after Cricket Australia only offered him a once-off six-month contract extension after retaining the Ashes and guiding Australia to its first T20 World Cup.
It is believed he is still not ready to head back into coaching yet, even with his great mate Ponting as the Hurricanes head of strategy.
Appointing Vaughan will be someone of a backflip for the Hurricanes, with Cricket Tasmanian previously adamant it wanted a separate Tigers and Hobart coach after the same set up failed under Adam Griffith.
Vaughan, a former assistant under Langer, will be supported by former South Australian and Strikers coach Darren Berry in a strategy and assistant coaching role and former Australian one-day all-rounder James Hopes as bowling coach.
Ponting already has a strong relationship with Hopes.
Hopes is the bowling coach for the Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League, where Ponting is the head coach.
Berry also has extensive T20 coaching experience as not only was he in charge at the Strikers and a Sydney Sixers assistant coach, but was Shane Warne’s assistant in the IPL when Warne led the Rajasthan Royals to the first ever IPL title.
The Hurricanes have a strong list on paper already with the likes of skipper Matthew Wade, Ben McDermott, D’Arcy Short, Nathan Ellis and Riley Meredith all having represented Australia in the shortest format, while Tim David has become one of T20’s hottest commodities given his ability to hit boundaries from ball one late in an innings.
But the Hurricanes plans for imports took a beating on Thursday, with Hobart securing pick eight — the last selection — in the weighted lotteries for the upcoming inaugural BBL draft.
It means the Hurricanes will have last pick in the platinum (round one), platinum and gold (round two) and silver and bronze (round four), but first pick in gold and silver (round three).
Players announced for the BBL draft so far:
Afghanistan: Rashid Khan, Qais Ahmad, Fazalhaq Farooqi, Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Waqarullah Ishaq, Izharulhaq Naveed, Naveen Ul Haq Murid, Hazratullah Zazai
New Zealand: Colin Munro, Todd Astle
South Africa: Faf du Plessis, Marchant de Lange, Rilee Rossouw, David Wiese (also Namibia)
West Indies: Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Sheldon Cottrell, Chemar Holder, Akeal Hosein, Evin Lewis, Anderson Phillip, Khary Pierre, Ravi Rampaul, Sherfane Rutherford, Jayden Seales, Kevin Sinclair, Tion Webster, Nyeem Young.
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