Legendary Australian cricketer and Delhi Capitals’ (DC) head coach Ricky Ponting is confident that Travis Head will get a big deal in the upcoming IPL 2024 player auction in Dubai.
Ponting said that he would have run after Head in the IPL 2023 auction if he was available for the entire season, but it couldn’t happen because of the latter's marriage.
Well, after the Australian opener’s heroics in the recent ICC Cricket World Cup 2023, especially his century in the final, the IPL franchises are likely to go crazy for Head in the mini-IPL auction next month.
And the Delhi Capitals (DC) coach revealed that he had called Head and told him that he would bid for the Australian opener at the auction for the 2023 season, but could not as the opener was to get married.
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Ricky Ponting was quoted as saying by 7NEWS: “Travis has done everything right to make sure he gets a deal this year. He would have had a deal last year if it wasn’t for his wedding. His wedding got in the middle of it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to pick him up at Delhi.”
The former captain added, “I rang him and told him I was going for him in the auction, and he said, ‘just to let you know, I’m getting married two weeks into the IPL. He would have missed three weeks at start of tournament, which our owners weren’t willing to take that gamble on.”
With Mitchell Starc likely to go under the hammer at the mini-auction, Ponting said that it will be interesting to see how Cricket Australia and the team management manages his workload.
He said, “They go to NZ after the summer, then IPL, then T20 World Cup after that ... there’ll be a few questions asked of the high performances guys at Cricket Australia as to what the expectations might and might not be for fast bowlers in the IPL auction.”
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Ponting also warned CA about how they manage the looming retirements in the Australian Test team. The former Australian skipper noted, “Cricket Australia needs to be careful how they manage some of these guys over next couple of years. Some of the teams I was in, we had five or six guys retire at once, they won’t want that to happen with this current team.”
He signed off by saying, “Davey’s (Warner) made it clear that he wants to finish this summer, (Usman) Khawaja not far behind, and the quicks can’t play forever, along with Nathan (Lyon). I’m sure they’ll find a way to stagger it out a bit and make sure they’ve got enough experience in that team for when the younger guys come in.”
(With 7NEWS Inputs)
