Will Ricky Ponting be the next Australian Coach?

The SportsRush reported yesterday about the end of Ricky Ponting’s coaching contract at the Mumbai Indians. Mahela Jayawardene is set to replace him. Amidst this news, comes a speculation that Ponting may actually play a vital role in the revamped Australian cricket.

 

Australian Cricket Team was recently given a thrashing at the hands of South Africa in 2 home tests. This created urgency to completely overall the working of Cricket Australia.

 

In the past few days, Chairman of the selectors, Rodney Marsh resigned and former player and skipper Greg Chappell was appointed the interim selector. Trevor Hohns replaced Marsh as the chairman.

 

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What escalated the speculations was a tweet done by former teammate Damien Martyn. He tweeted, “One of @CricketAus greats is no longer coaching the @mipaltan IPL side. Could a big announcement be coming?” The tweet was with a pic of Ponting wearing Baggy Green with a mug shot.

 

Ponting did decently in the last two years in his role as Mumbai Indians coach. MI also appeared as the champions in 2015 edition. In general, mentoring or coaching domestic T20 sides is considered a prosperous career choice for former greats. It requires lesser efforts in terms of time and the pay scale is more than satisfactory.

 

Hence under ‘normal’ circumstances, a player leaves a domestic league contract only when he has a country calling. So Ponting leaving Mumbai Indians actually points towards a bigger role awaiting him in Australian Cricket.