Australia eye South Africa great Donald as bowling coach: report
Race ruling leaves Kallis ‘embarrassed’
MELBOURNE, April 27, (Agencies): South Africa fast bowling great Allan Donald will join Australia as bowling coach for their tour of Sri Lanka this year, local media reported on Wednesday.
The 49-year-old, who took 330 test wickets at an outstanding average of 22.25, could then stay on as part of the top-ranked test nation’s coaching team for series against Pakistan and South Africa in the coming home summer, News Ltd media said.
Cricket Australia declined to comment on the report but a team spokeswoman said the governing body hoped to have the coaching set-up for Sri Lanka settled within a “week or so”.
Craig McDermott, who helped guide Australia to victory in last year’s World Cup and a 5-0 whitewash of England in the last Ashes series on home soil, stepped down as bowling coach after the World Twenty20 in India.
Donald, nicknamed ‘White Lightning’ during a 72-test career from 1992-2002, stepped down as bowling coach of South Africa a year ago, after four years mentoring the Proteas’ feared pace battery of Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Morne Morkel.
Cricketing great Jacques Kallis has said he is “embarrassed” to be South African after the government banned four sports federations from bidding for international tournaments for failing to pick enough black players.
South Africa’s sports minister announced Monday he would veto any bid by the cricket, rugby, netball and athletics bodies to host multinational events as they had missed racial “transformation targets” designed to redress apartheid era inequalities.
While more than 90 percent of South Africans are black, they remain in a minority in the starting line-up for many national teams -- most notably rugby and cricket -- more than two decades after the end of whites-only rule.
Australia fast bowler John Hastings has been withdrawn from a one-day triseries against West Indies and South Africa in the Caribbean after undergoing surgery on his ankle.
The 30-year-old suffered pain bowling in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and scans confirmed “early stage bone stress” in his fibula near the ankle, the team said on Wednesday.
“While laid off with this injury we have taken this opportunity to undertake arthroscopic surgery to remove bone spurs in his left ankle which have been causing him concern for some time and were possibility contributing to the cause of the bone stress,” Cricket Australia sports science and sports medicine manager Alex Kountouris said in a media release.
Selectors named Victorian paceman Scott Boland as a replacement for Hastings on the June tour.
England chiefs have given Chris Jordan the go-ahead to play in the lucrative Twenty20 Indian Premier League even though it means the all-rounder may not be available for Test duty.
Sussex paceman Jordan is set to fly out to India later this week after being called up as the Royal Challengers Bangalore’s replacement overseas player, with former Australia fast bowler Mitchell Johnson yet to recover from a foot injury.
Jordan enhanced his reputation as a white-ball ‘death’ bowler during England’s