India opener Rohit Sharma recently had a long interaction with former England skipper Kevin Pietersen on Instagram Live. They discussed all things related to cricket, life and how it feels like dealing with the ongoing Coronavirus lockdown.
During the chat, Pietersen also asked Rohit about his favourite coach and the latter took the name of legendary Ricky Ponting before opening up on his bonding with the former Australia captain.
"Ricky Ponting to me was magic," Rohit said.
"The way he handled the team when he was captain for the first half of the tournament and then he gave the captaincy to me mid-way through the tournament, it takes a lot of guts to do that. I can only imagine him doing that," he elaborated.
Sharma took over the reins at Mumbai Indians from Ponting in 2013 and since then he has led the team to four IPL titles in addition to the two Champions League T20 trophies.
"After that as well, to be as involved as he was as a support staff...he played a supporting role to all the players, to all the youngsters in the team and he was guiding me through captaincy. I got to learn a lot from him," Rohit said, before adding "So he was a different ballgame altogether for me."
Ricky Ponting was a key figure in shaping up the MI side. He coached the franchise in the IPL from 2014 to 2016. It was his visionary eyes that brought the exceptional talents like Jasprit Bumrah and Hardik Pandya in contention. The three-time World Cup-winner was also instrumental in guiding and marshalling players such as Jos Buttler and Krunal Pandya.
