One of the most celebrated tournaments in India, Indian Premier League (IPL) is all set to begin from March 23. All the teams are preparing their best to win the title. This tournament will help those players who are currently going through rough patches as well as who are in good touch. Ahead of the ICC World Cup in May, the league will help the players to get selected in the World Cup squad as the World Cup squad is yet to be announced. Ahead of the IPL, Delhi Capitals’ coach Ricky Ponting shared his thought on Delhi Capitals team, Australia’s chances in the World Cup and more to CricketNext.
This season Delhi Capitals is a brand new side with the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, Prithvi Shaw, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant and more. While talking about this, Ponting said that it felt like a new team.
“It feels like a new start. Obviously total re-brand,” said Ponting. “I think like most squads we feel like we have got a really good solid squad going into this tournament. But that’s the one thing about the IPL, every team has got a good squad, it’s about how you maximise that through the tournament and make sure you have got your players making good honest decisions at the right times in games.”
Read here: Steve Smith & David Warner reunite with the Australia team in UAE
While talking about the young guns like Shaw and Iyer, Ponting said Shaw is a great talent as well as Iyer and he thought this year will go great for them.
“He (Prithvi Shaw) was outstanding, look he is an outstanding talent, I think he has to elevate his game to another level this year in IPL cricket. He got lot of starts last year without really going on to making a big score, so that’s going to be the big challenge for him,” said Ponting.
“Look he (Shreyas Iyer) is a class player, he has had a terrific domestic season and he is a terrific young man as well. I love working with him every day at training, we are pretty close, we work hard on a lot of his batting stuff, a lot of his leadership so I think he’ll have a really big season for Capitals this year,” added Ponting.
While talking about Pant, he shared that Pant has amazed him last season. He further said that Pant is a smart player.
Also read: Ricky Ponting shares his views on the Sachin Tendulkar versus Virat Kohli debate
“Rishabh Pant’s the other one who scored what 650 runs last year and didn’t stop amazing me right the way through the tournament. I mean he’s got all the talent in the world but he is also a very smart player, the way he controlled some of our batting innings last year whether we were batting first or even during run chases was quite remarkable. When he is out in the middle, when you know him, he is quite a lively sort of a character…”
While talking about the Australia team, he told that it was great to win the ODI series by 3-2.
“It’s a brilliant result, it’s a result they have been working long and hard for, for the last probably 18 months to be honest. I mean Australia’s One Day cricket for a long time has been particularly poor. I think coming into this series they have won 3-4 of their last 20 odd ODIs which for Australian cricket team is just not even heard of sort of stuff.”
“They haven’t won enough games when you start winning a few games that confidence comes back, it comes back in the individuals and comes back around the team. Once you get confident individuals and a confident team then amazing things can happen. The comeback over here was a pretty amazing result.”
Read here: “Rishabh Pant Perfect For Being MS Dhoni’s Deputy in World Cup 2019”: Ricky Ponting
While talking about the top three teams of World Cup, he expressed that England, India and Australia have possibilities to be there at the top.
“I think England, India and Australia are the three standout teams. I still think England are probably the best One Day team going around at the moment.”
