Legendary Australian batter and World Cup-winning captain Ricky Ponting will no longer be the head coach of the Indian Premier League franchise Delhi Capitals, as his seven-year association with the team was announced to have concluded ahead of the mega auction for the 2025 edition of the cash-rich league.
As per ESPNCricinfo, it is understood that under Ponting, the franchise failed to achieve the desired results, and the owners have decided to move on from the legend.
The official X handle of the franchise on Saturday confirmed that it was parting ways with Ponting, tweeting, “After 7 seasons, Delhi Capitals has decided to part ways with Ricky Ponting. It’s been a great journey, Coach! Thank you for everything.”
Ever since Ponting’s appointment as a coach in 2018, when the franchise was called Delhi Daredevils, Delhi qualified for the playoffs thrice, in 2019, 2020, and 2021. In fact, in the 2020 season, Delhi made it to the finals for the first-time ever, but lost to the Mumbai Indians.
However, for the last three years, Delhi have failed to progress to the final four stages. This year, the franchise finished in the sixth spot, narrowly missing out on the playoffs on the basis of net-run-rate. They won seven and lost seven matches this year.
However, the positives were in plenty for the team this season as not only their skipper Rishabh Pant returned to competitive cricket after a life-threatening accident, several youngsters like Jake Fraser McGurk, Tristan Stubbs, Abhishek Porel, Rasikh Salam Dar also delivered fine performances and presented themselves as the potential DC stars for the future.
“As you move on as our head coach, we are finding it incredibly hard to put this down in words,” DC said in a post on social media.
“The four things you told us about in every huddle–care, commitment, attitude, and effort – they sum up our seven summers together. Seven summers of you being hands-on, but also hands-off, so that we could become better. As athletes, yes, but more importantly, as human beings. Seven summers of you reaching every training session first, and leaving last. Seven summers of you sprinting out of the dugout during strategic timeouts, and biting your nails off until there were none left.”
“Seven summers of your dressing room speeches – the speeches, Oh! (Separate post for that loading) Seven summers of your hugs, shoulder pats and fist pumps for us all–newcomer, superstar… and everyone in-between. Thank you for everything, Coach! Like, you often close out, ‘Let’s leave this here, mate, get back to work tomorrow, yeah?,” the post concluded.
The remaining DC coaching staff consists of director of cricket Sourav Ganguly, assistant coach Pravin Amre, bowling coach James Hopes, and fielding coach Biju George.