International coaches have been a part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) curricula ever since the inception of the league took place back in 2008 when teams like Chennai Super Kings (runners-up) and Rajasthan Royals (champions) were coached by foreign legends like Kepler Wessels and Shane Warne, respectively. 

However, the situation with regard to the ongoing IPL season seems to be a bit on the edge, especially with the ICC World Cup 2019 less than a month away. The fact that there eight IPL franchises this year and all of them are head-coached by international personnel, seems to be irking a lot of members of the management team of the Men in Blue.

Former Australian captain, Ricky Ponting is currently entrusted with the role of the head coach of the Delhi Capitals franchise. Within ten days of IPL getting over, Ponting will join the head coach of the Australian cricket team, Justin Langer, as an assistant coach as they fly over to the United Kingdom for the World Cup.

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As integral members of DC's batting strategies, Ponting spends a good portion of the day with batsman Shikhar Dhawan, who will also open the Indian batting order come June when India begin their World Cup journey against South Africa.

Observing Dhawan from such a vantage point for so long gives Ponting a good idea of the batsman's strengths and weaknesses, he knows which shots is he comfortable playing and which shots give him a tough time executing. 

It's clearly unhealthy. Rishabh, Prithvi, Shreyas — see the amount of analysis they're being able to gather,” says one of the members of the management team for India, as reported by the Times of India.

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“We don't think it's fine for Australia's national assistant coach (Ponting) to be spending time with the Indian team opener just weeks ahead of a World Cup campaign, or even otherwise with a franchise that includes India's four Test cricketers. Of course, the IPL's a free market but some lines have to be drawn.”

Now the question is whether there is some gravity to such beliefs or is it the result of sheer paranoia. International coaches have been a part of IPL for the past 12 years. Since then, we have had a couple of World Cups too, out of which India even won the trophy once in 2011. 

Will Ponting's work with Dhawan brings him some added advantage over Ravi Shatri and the rest of the Indian cricket team, I guess we'll just have to wait and watch.