It was revealed that two Australian former cricketers Ricky Ponting and Justin Langer had been offered the Indian Men’s senior cricket team head coach position, but the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Jay Shah has cleared all rumours saying that no former Australian cricketer has been approached.
In a statement on Friday, Jay Shah said, “When it comes to international cricket, nothing beats being Head Coach of the Indian Cricket Team. The Indian National Team has the biggest fans globally and they are unparalleled in their support. This is one of the most lucrative jobs you can get, considering our background and passion for sport in general. One gets to nurture future stars and develop a pipeline of talented cricketers. It is a great honor looking at how many people have supported us over 1 billion.”
Shah added: “I or any other officer from BCCI never approached any ex- Australian Cricketer to take up coaching role with us. The reports circulated within certain sections of media are completely baseless. Identifying potential candidates who understand well about our cricket system and have grown through it is what we are focusing on. For India’s team to rise higher than ever before knowledge by the new coach regarding our domestic level competitions should be exploited.”
Ricky Ponting, an Australian great, disclosed on Thursday that he was sounded out about potentially becoming India’s next head coach but felt that it did not match his “lifestyle” at that juncture.
“…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 ICC.
“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.
“Also, 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,” he added.
Furthermore, another report on Thursday indicated Lucknow Super Giants head coach Justin Langer was considering going for the India head coach job until skipper KL Rahul warned him about this life-changing step being taken hastily.
Coaching the Indian team would be an amazing job according to Langer who however recently pulled himself out from consideration.
Langer said in a recent interview that Rahul advised him against taking charge of Team India which he described as an extremely pressurized role compared to handling them in IPL franchises.
“It would be an amazing job, [but] I have [put myself out of contention],” Langer said on BBC’s Stumped podcast.
Also, it is an exhaustive job that I know since I did it for four years with the Australian team. “But this is the Australian job!”
I told KL Rahul and he replied: ‘You see pressure and politics in IPL teams? Multiply that by a thousand, [that’s] coaching India.’ That was useful information,” said Langer.
BCCI has stated May 27 as the closing date for applications.
