Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting has made a sensational claim that he was offered the England's Test team head coach role before Brendon McCullum was approached for the same. England suffered an embarrassing 0-4 drubbing at the hands of Australia in the previous edition of the Ashes series. The brutal hammering in the Ashes series led the culling of England's batting mentor Graham Thorpe, managing director Ashley Giles and above all the stepping down of Joe Root from Test captaincy.
Rob Key then was appointed England & Wales Cricket Board (ECB) director of men's cricket in April 2022. Soon ECB appointed former New Zealand's star batter Brendon McCullum as their new Test coach. Key in a statement had said that McCullum was the outstanding candidate for the role.
In another big move, ECB appointed Ben Stokes as their new Test skipper. It was a perfect union of Stokes and McCullum who together introduced ‘Bazball’ in English cricket. The ultra aggressive style called Bazball yielded results for England as in a total of 14 Tests they played after the Ashes 2022 fiasco, Stokes & Co. lost just three matches.
McCullum brought a revolution in England's cricket with his aggressive approach. But imagine how things would have panned out had the legendary Ponting been appointed as England's Test coach.
One year on, Ponting revealed that ECB's director of men's cricket Key approached him for the coaching role before McCullum and also explained why he didn't accept the offer.
Ponting is now linked up with Delhi Capitals in the Indian Premier League as their head coach and worked alongside former Aussie coach Justin Langer during the World Cup 2019 which was played in England.
"I actually was asked before Brendon took the job. I did take some calls from Robert Key as soon as he took over that job. But I'm just not ready for a full-time international coaching job, where I'm at in my life. Having traveled as much as I have, with young kids now I just don't want to be away as much as I was. And even talking to Brendon, his family is only just arriving today. When you've got kids that are in school, moving them around, that's not what I want to do," Ponting told Guerilla Cricket this week.
However, Bazball approach backfired England in the Ashes 2023 series opener at Edgbaston. England first made a bold move and declared their first innings at the score of 393/8. Australia in reply notched 386 on the board. With a lead of seven runs, England kicked off their second innings with an intent to pile a huge target for Australia but their ‘Bazball’ approach fell flat as they could only post a target of 281 for Australia to chase. Australia began a rain-delayed Day 5 on 107/3, however, Australia's chances of winning the match depreciated as things went ahead which saw the WTC 2023 champions get reduced to 227/8. But Australia captain Cummins and Nathan Lyon, launched a fightback and sealed victory on Tuesday with an unbeaten 44. The dazzling duo stitched a match-winning partnership of 55 runs off 72 balls for the ninth-wicket with Cummins and Lyon chipping in with 44 off 73 and 16 off 28 respectively.
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