IPL 2019 | Sourav and I have great respect for each other, reveals Ricky Ponting

The 2019 IPL season is just around the corner and the teams involved have entered the final stages of their preparation for the competition. The Delhi Capitals (previously Delhi Daredevils) will hope that they can improve from their performances from the previous season after having disappointed in the last edition of the tournament finishing last in the league.

Ricky Ponting was appointed as the head coach of the Delhi-based franchise last season but failed to help them make the play-off stage. The Capitals have added Sourav Ganguly as an advisor for the Shreyas Iyer-led team. But anyone who remotely followed international cricket through the early 2000s is well aware that Ponting and Ganguly weren’t the best of mates on the pitch.

However, Ponting dismissed any claims that there is bad blood between the two greats of international cricket as he said that they both share great mutual respect for one another.

“Sourav and I have always got along just fine. We have great respect for one another. We’ve actually interacted a lot since we’ve been retired. We’ve been on cricket committees together and spent a bit of time talking. He will be an advisor. He might not have anything to do with us on game day but he will be around the team, around meetings. I’m very, very open to that,” Ponting was quoted as saying by The Times of India.

Ponting, who has previously coached Mumbai Indians, has said that Delhi youngster Rishabh Pant remains India’s best choice for the second wicketkeeper slot ahead of the upcoming ICC World Cup in England. Pant failed to get going in the recently-concluded ODI series loss to Australia and there were doubts over the 21-year-old’s place in the Indian team. Ponting, however, reckons that the left-handed batsman is lucky to have put the rough spell with India behind him.

“I think it’s actually a big job for me and the coaches when he comes in, to make him forget what’s happened in the last few days [in Mohali]. He’s probably lucky it happened in the last couple of games.

“It would have been hard to play all five games under that kind of pressure. Now he’s back in a competition where he has dominated in the past. If he can win a couple of games for us then everything will be forgotten. I can’t see anyone better than him as a second wicketkeeper in that Indian World Cup squad,” Ponting added.

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