Cricket News: Andrew McDonald, Australia’s new head coach, will miss the first half of the Sri Lanka trip after testing positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday, a day before the team’s departure for the island nation. The Australian T20 team will depart for Sri Lanka on Wednesday without their head coach, who will be held in isolation for seven days in Melbourne.
Until McDonald joins the squad, which is expected to be in Colombo ahead of the second T20, assistant coach Michael Di Venuto will serve as an acting coach. In their first tour to Sri Lanka in six years, Australia will play three T20Is, five ODIs, and two Tests. The tour will begin in Colombo on June 7 with the first Twenty20 International.
Rest up, coach 🙏
Michael Di Venuto will coach the Australian men’s T20 side before Andrew McDonald re-joins the squad at the conclusion of seven days isolation. pic.twitter.com/QYDoB5kMAv
— Cricket Australia (@CricketAus) June 1, 2022
McDonald was hired as Australia’s full-time head coach following Justin Langer’s resignation, and this tour to Sri Lanka would be his first assignment. He led the team on a successful tour to Pakistan earlier this year as interim coach.
Australia will travel to Sri Lanka with a revamped backroom staff, including three new assistant coaches, a new physiotherapist, and a new psychologist.
Clint McKay, a former Test and Victoria seamer, will join Di Venuto and spin coach Sri Sriram on the coaching team for the T20 and ODI portions of the tour.
Daniel Vettori, a New Zealand legend, and Andre Borovec, a former Victoria and Melbourne Renegades assistant coach, will then take over as full-time assistant coaches for the two-Test series in Galle, which begins on June 29.
“Managing your workload across the four years is a huge difficulty for coaches and athletes,” McDonald had previously stated.
“I’d like to think I have the coaching staff to step up, and we can elevate certain coaches at different times to take on different tours and different challenges.
“While doing that it’s only growing the depth of our coaching staff…coaches will get exposed along the journey to help out the workload which is quite significant for a head coach.”
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