Debasis Sen, Melbourne: Former Australian great Ricky Ponting prefers the role of Head Coach of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Capitals ahead of the Australian senior team. Ponting, who will continue his role with the Delhi franchise has stayed about from any coaching stint with Cricket Australia, given the coaching crisis it is facing in recent times. Cricket Australia is unable to find the money to pay the elite former players needed to rebuild the game.
Justin Langer, who has taken over the reins of Head Coach after Darren Lehman was removed, is paid less than Glen Maxwell. Even fringe players like Ashton Agar will give the left hander a run for his money.
Langer is believed to be earning about $1 million, more than his predecessor Darren Lehmann, whose wage was supplemented by performance ¬bonuses.A leading AFL coach can earn up to $1.5m for a job that is less demanding and allows them to sleep in their own bed most nights.Langer wanted former teammates Simon Katich and Ricky Ponting alongside him in the Australian set-up as he was struggling with the workload and pressure of trying to reassemble a team after the debacle in South Africa.
Both Ponting and Katich have been approached by Cricket Australia to get them involved in the high-performance system, but they cannot be lured away from their existing commitments.
Ponting is understood to earn about $600,000 for a few months work in the IPL. Katich is an assistant coach for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL and was head coach for the same franchise in this year’s Caribbean Premier League.
The pair also picks up good money as commentators in Australia for the summer and both have helped Langer with the team when they get a chance.
Trevor Bayliss gave up a job at NSW to take on the head coach’s role with England, a move that would have tripled his salary.
There was a plan in place to have Ponting take over the T20 role from Lehmann before he stood down but that was abandoned when Langer started. The new coach wanted to run the whole show himself while finding his feet, but asked Ponting to come and help when he could.
Ponting believes the structure is wrong and that Cricket Australia needs to build a pathway for good Test and Shield cricketers to want to move into coaching.“If you retire from cricket, what is the incentive to go into a coaching job on the lower rung,” he said. “You have no chance of earning decent money in the early years and there are only a couple of key jobs to aspire to.”