Former batting great Ricky Ponting will be joining the coaching staff of the Australian Cricket Team for the upcoming ODI and T20I series in England, as Cricket Australia(CA) announced today. Australia will be playing a five-match ODI series as well as a standalone T20 game on the three-week tour against the number one ranked ODI team in the world hence, the experience of Ponting has been added to the squad for the stern test. 

Ponting has previously done the role of the head coach for Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League and did the same for Delhi Daredevils in this season. He also has the experience of performing the coaching duty for the Australian T20 side, when in absence of Darren Lehmann he replaced his former teammate for the T20 internationals triangular series against England and New Zealand. 

Ricky won't be doing the same role in the coming series but the wealth of knowledge, as Justin Langer, the current head coach has reiterated, will be invaluable for the young team. Langer stated recently that, “Ricky is one of the greats of the game, and since he was already in England doing some commentary we saw it as a great opportunity to have him join our team for this important series,” 

“We have played a lot of cricket together and coached alongside each other previously, and he will also know many of the players already through his work with the team over the past two summers and his BBL commitments"

“Ricky’s knowledge of the game is second-to-none, and we know that his experiences, tactical expertise and leadership will be invaluable for this group, as we start to build a team capable of winning a World Cup in these conditions in a year’s time.”

Australia will be without David Warner, Steve Smith and Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins and so, needs as much substantialness to their personnel in tough conditions as possible. They lost the last series between these two team, 4-1 and with their best players available. 

The ODI series starts on June 13th.

(Inputs from Cricket365)