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Craig McDermott has pipped his old pace rival Allan Donald and the little-known Allister de Winter to become Australia's pace bowling coach, replacing Troy Cooley. The appointment was to be announced in Brisbane on Thursday after Michael Brown, Cricket Australia's head of cricket operations, had completed his final round of interviews.
In another coaching decision, the Australian batting coach Justin Langer is expected to be formally re-appointed to the role after agreeing to terms with CA. Langer has held the post since November 2009.
In the 15 years since his retirement from international cricket in 1996, McDermott has tried various pursuits, not all of them successful. But in recent times he had worked as a pace bowling coach at the Centre of Excellence in Brisbane, and was taken to Bangladesh as interim pace bowling coach for Australia's short tour in April, where he gelled successfully with the players.
"The work Craig's done over the last couple of days with the guys has been great," Brett Lee told ESPNcricinfo during the tour. "He's been a world-class bowler for Australia and his record speaks for itself. He gets on well with the guys."
McDermott was chosen out of an initial field that included Jason Gillespie and Andy Bichel in addition to Donald and de Winter, with his previous involvement in the Australian system likely to have been a major selling point. A long and successful Test career, in which he took 291 wickets across 71 matches and excelled in a wide variety of conditions, would also have helped.
Donald is now likely to remain with New Zealand where he had begun a fruitful relationship with the national side during the World Cup, while de Winter will go back to preparing the Tasmanian pace attack for their tilt at defending the Sheffield Shield title.
Daniel Brettig is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo
Feeds: Daniel Brettig © ESPN EMEA Ltd.
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