India offered head coach role during 2021 IPL: Ricky Ponting

Former Indian batting great Rahul Dravid has finally taken over as India's head coach, replacing Ravi Shastri, however it seems Dravid wasn't the first choice to guide the national team.

Former Australian captain Ricky Ponting has revealed that he was offered the role of India's team head coach during Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021 edition.

Ponting also claimed that people who approached him were 'pretty hell-bent' on getting him on board, but he didn’t accepted the offer due to his workload.

Ponting who has done a good job as Delhi Capital's head coach said he didn’t want to leave his roles at the IPL franchise and Channel 7. 

Ponting said while speaking on The Grade Cricketer podcast: “But [in this job] I am living in India for 300 days a year. Yeah, look I had a couple of conversations with some people during the IPL about it." 

"You know the people I spoke to were pretty hell-bent on trying to find a way to make it work because the first thing I said was 'I just can't give up that time, it will mean I can't coach in the IPL, I'll have to give up Channel 7 stuff in the summer, it just can't work," Ponting added.

On the other hand, the former Aussie skipper also expressed surprise over Dravid taking up the job despite having a young family. 

He said: "I'm surprised that Dravid has taken it up as well. There was a lot of chat about how happy he was in his Under-19 role he had. I'm not sure about his family life but I'm sure he has got young kids. So I'm surprised that he took it."