Former Australia captain Ricky Ponting confirmed that he will never consider taking the coaching job of the England cricket team after Matthew Mott stepped down from his post.
Mott was England’s head coach when they won the 2022 T20 World Cup in Australia by beating Pakistan in the final. However, doubts about his future were raised after the team’s below-par performance in the ODI World Cup 2023 and T20 World Cup 2024 and he eventually stepped down.
Speaking on The ICC Review, Ponting stated that as an Australian, he cannot take the job of coaching England.
“No, I wouldn’t ever consider doing that actually,” Ponting said when asked about the England role.
“I’m on record saying that international jobs for me right now are not really where my life is at as there’s just so much more time taken up with an international job.
“I’ve got other commitments as well, with my TV work and things that I do and also trying to balance that out with having a decent amount of home time, which I haven’t had much of the last couple of years anyway.
“Coaching other international teams is one thing, coaching England for an Australian is probably something slightly different, but right now there’s sort of enough on my plate as I’ve got a bit more coming up in the next couple of months in the UK.
“Australia’s got some white-ball stuff coming up over there which I’ll go and commentate, so no, right now if my name was on the list they can actually take it off.”
The former captain then expressed his desire to return to coaching in the Indian Premier League (IPL) where he coached Delhi Capitals (DC) in the past.
“I’d love to coach again in the IPL,” he stated. “I’ve had a great time every year that I’ve been involved, whether that was in the early days as a player or the couple of years I had at Mumbai as head coach there.
“And then I’ve had seven seasons at Delhi, which unfortunately didn’t really work out the way that I would have wanted and certainly the way that the franchise would have wanted. I think me going there was all about trying to bring some silverware to the team and that didn’t happen.”