MacGill help to give Crane an Ashes lift
ENGLAND are planning to use Stuart MacGill under the noses of Australia ahead of this winter’s Ashes.
MacGill spent two and a half years locked in a legal dispute over injury payments with Cricket Australia that resulted in an out-of-court settlement in July but remains highly valued by England as a leg-spin consultant.
And with Mason Crane a shoo-in for a maiden Test tour, England are keen to reunite the pair.
Hampshire leg-spinner Crane, 20, has kept in contact with MacGill, engaging in regular text exchanges about his bowling, after building a strong rapport through one-on-one coaching sessions while at Sydney grade club Gordon last winter.
Crane enjoys working under England’s 100-day-a-year bowling consultant Saqlain Mushtaq but would welcome an extension of his relationship with a man whose prowess as Shane Warne’s understudy reaped 208 Test wickets.
He impressed with his temperament during two Twenty20 international appearances against South Africa in midsummer, and credits MacGill for promoting a sense of calm calculation to his overs — previously guilty of rushing through his deliveries, his bowling has became a lot more deliberate.
Although uncapped at Test level — that status would have changed had the final Test between England and West Indies at Lord’s been a dead rubber — Crane is viewed as a potential international matchwinner.
And he has shown himself to be prolific in Australian conditions: three consecutive seven-wicket hauls for Gordon resulted in MacGill presenting him with his baggy blue in March — as New South Wales’ first overseas player in the Sheffield Shield since Imran Khan in 1984-85. Five victims contributed to NSW’s comfortable victory over South Australia.
The Ashes squad, and shadow England Lions party that will be based in Australia, is not due to be announced until the final week of September but Peter Such, the ECB’s lead spin coach, confirmed to the Mail On Sunday that contact would be made with MacGill, as part of an ongoing drive for ‘the best young players to work with quality people, who add value’.
The 46-year-old previously played under England coach Trevor Bayliss at New South Wales.
Meanwhile, an agreement with Kent’s head coach Matt Walker to deputise for England assistant coach Paul Farbrace in the Twenty20 triseries featuring Australia and New Zealand next February is to be resurrected.
Walker declined the offer due to its proximity to his county’s pre-season plans but it is understood that the shifting of Kent’s dates has altered his availability once more.