Andrew McDonald Takes Over As The Assistant Coach of Australia

Andrew McDonald has been included in the support staff of the Australian national cricket team. He is going to serve as the assistant of the head coach Justin Langer.

McDonald is a certified coach who comes with a dearth of coaching experience. He recently signed for the IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals as well to work for them as the head coach in IPL 2020.

Since David Saker resigned from his position, Australia have tried various former cricketers as the assistant coaches including the 3-time world cup winning captain Ricky Ponting.

But, those coaches were appointed on a series to series basis. Even Ponting was there only for the World Cup.

McDonald seems to have been roped in for long-term as the general manager of Cricket Australia (CA) said while announcing his appointment that he was confident Australia’s playing group would “grow” under McDonald.

The CA general manager, however, didn’t reveal anything about the duration of McDonald’s contract.

McDonald didn’t boast of a great record as an international player for Australia as he managed to play just 4 test matches in which he scored 107 runs at an average of 21.40.

His first class record, in comparison, is far better as he averages close to 40 in first class cricket with 11 hundreds and 25 fifties.

McDonald was a handy medium pace bowler as well to go with his batting as he has more than 200 first class wickets to his name.

The Australian head coach Justin Langer was full of praise for McDonald who has worked with the domestic sides in England, Australia and India before this job.

According to Langer, the fact that McDonald has gone places in his short coaching career tells a lot about his coaching credentials.

Langer insisted that McDonald was only going to bring positivity to the Australian set-up as he is extremely good at man-management.