Cricket Australia eyes Ricky Ponting as replacement for Lehmann against Lankans

Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting is favorite to take over as the coach of the Australian T20I squad with Darren Lehmann focusing his attention on the Test side that will be playing a series of Test matches. The idea of having the two-coach system has been used by England with Ashely Giles coming into the side just for the limited-over’s series.

Cricket Australia representatives said that a number of names were thrown in the hat. Justin Langer and Jason Gillespie are some of the names in the hat for the same. The Cricket Australia representative also released a statement regarding the unavailability of the likes of Darren Lehmann and David Saker for the upcoming series against South Africa and India.

“We are speaking to a number of people about the prospect of coaching the T20 international side during the Sri Lanka Series due to Darren Lehmann and David Saker being in India,” a Cricket Australia spokesperson told cricket.com.au on Saturday (October 29). “At this stage no decision has been made.”

Ricky Ponting has also served as coach for the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League wherein he has churned out a few impressive results to say the least. Jason Gillespie also endorsed the choice of coach.

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Ponting said “there had been a few inquiries”. “Darren (Lehmann) will be away with that (Test) team, so they will need someone to coach the Australia T20 team here in Australia,” he said on Australian radio show Rush Hour. “I’m not saying that’s me … let’s wait and see over the next few months and there will be an announcement I’m sure.”

“I think that would be a good thing for the Twenty20 side to have Ricky Ponting take the reins,” Gillespie told cricket.com.au. “I think it would be a great coup for Cricket Australia if they could convince Ricky Ponting to take the reins for that.

“If he’s not available, it would certainly be something I would look at,” he added.

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