Former captain Ricky Ponting has been appointed as an assistant coach of Australia\u2019s men\u2019s team for the 50-over World Cup in England later this year, the country\u2019s cricket board said on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 44-year-old Ponting will work with Australia\u2019s batsmen for the May 30-July 14 tournament, with current batting coach Graeme Hick focussing on preparing the side for the Ashes tour in England, starting in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ponting\u2019s appointment is the second major shakeup in Australia\u2019s backroom staff in as many days, with bowling coach David Saker resigning \u201ceffective immediately\u201d on Thursday. Saker has been replaced temporarily by Troy Cooley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Australia won their fifth World Cup title on home soil four years ago and head coach Justin Langer said that Ponting\u2019s experience in leading the team to two of those victories would be invaluable in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWith two major events back to back we believe it is important to focus a number of staff specifically on one event,\u201d Clark said. \u201cThe appointment of Ricky is a part of this overall strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cRicky knows what\u2019s required to win World Cups, and I know he will be a valuable mentor to not just the batting group, but the broader squad as we focus our attention on defending our World Cup title,\u201d Langer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHe has an impressive understanding of the game, he knows what\u2019s required to prepare and perform at the elite level, and we can\u2019t wait for him to get started working with the squad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As well as assisting the batsmen, Ponting will help Langer fine tune the team\u2019s tactics and strategies, Cricket Australia\u2019s interim general manager of high performance Belinda Clark said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ponting played 375 one-day internationals for Australia and led them to the World Cup titles in 2003 and 2007. He was also a member of Steve Waugh\u2019s winning side in 1999 – the last time the tournament was held in England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clark said appointing Ponting for the World Cup would enable Hick to concentrate solely on helping Australia defend the Ashes against England.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ponting has had short-term engagements with the Australian men\u2019s limited overs team in recent years and will begin his role after Australia\u2019s one-day series against India and Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve enjoyed my previous short-term roles with the ODI and T20 teams but World Cups take on a whole different meaning for me,\u201d Ponting said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Former captain Ricky Ponting has been appointed as an assistant coach of Australia\u2019s men\u2019s team for the 50-over World Cup in England later this year, the country\u2019s cricket board said on Friday. The 44-year-old Ponting will work with Australia\u2019s batsmen for the May 30-July 14 tournament, with current batting coach Graeme Hick focussing on preparing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54513,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54514,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54512\/revisions\/54514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}