Legendary Australian spinner Shane Warne, who is also the brand ambassador of Rajasthan Royals, feels that two time World Cup winning skipper Ricky Ponting should not hold a position in any Indian Premier League (IPL) team due to his commitments with Cricket Australia (CA).
Ponting is the head coach of IPL franchise Delhi Capitals, and now that he is associated with Australia coaching staff for the upcoming ICC World Cup 2019, Warne believes the former Aussie skipper should step down from his position, citing the example of Ravi Shastri, who had to leave the IPL governing council in 2015.
“But on the first point, this is not for me to say but if the BCCI decides Ravi Shastri cannot be part of the IPL, then I don’t see how Ricky can be,” Warne was quoted as saying to Mumbai Mirror.
Ravi Shastri, who is currently Team India’s head coach, was the team director of India in 2015. Before Shastri became the team director of India, BCCI removed the veteran cricketer from the IPL governing council due to a potential conflict of interest. Shastri was part of the IPL governing council since the inaugural edition of IPL in 2008.
Recently, in an interview with Cricbuzz, when Warne was asked about the controversy involving all-rounder Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul’s comments on a TV chat show, he termed that as “ridiculous”.
Both Pandya and Rahul were widely slammed for their sexist remarks on women in popular TV show Koffee with Karan, hosted by filmmaker Karan Johar.
“…it’s all about political correctness these days. If a player steps out of line, everybody has an opinion and I thought that this particular thing was ridiculous. Just let them be”, Warne said.