Justin Langer’s assistant Andrew McDonald replaces him as Australia’s head coach for four years
Andrew McDonald was one of the assistants of Langer in the Australian set up since 2019
The former Australian allrounder Andrew McDonald has been named the head coach of the Australian national cricket team across all three formats for a period of 4 years.
Recently, Australia’s previous head coach Justin Langer was refused to be given a long contract extension by Cricket Australia (CA) despite him guiding the team to a T20 World Cup victory and an Ashes triumph, as he didn’t enjoy a great relationship with all the Australian players and the players were not happy with his style of coaching.
It was rumored that the Australian test captain Pat Cummins himself was not strongly in favor of Langer being given a long contract extension.
After being offered only a short extension as a reward for his Ashes triumph, Langer left the job and submitted his resignation, inviting criticism for CA from all quarters. CA then had to appoint Langer’s assistant Andrew McDonald as the head coach for the tour of Pakistan on an interim basis.
However, after interviewing McDonald for the full time role, Cricket Australia and its decision makers eventually decided that McDonald could take over Langer’s position on a permanent basis and he was offered a 4-year contract, which he accepted on the condition that he would be given a break from time and time and his workload would be managed.
Andrew McDonald has better relationship with Aussie players than Justin Langer
McDonald is believed to enjoy a far better relationship with the Aussie players as compared to Langer, as his style of coaching is much different to his predecessor. McDonald might not have played as much cricket at the international level as Langer did, but he has got a fair bit of coaching experience under his belt.
Andrew McDonald has coached Victoria in both red ball and white ball cricket and apart from that, he has also been at the helm of affairs with the BBL team Melbourne Renegades. McDonald was also the head coach of Rajasthan Royals in the IPL for a couple of years.
