Cricket news round-up – 31 October: Gough and Masakadza to begin new innings, Scotland and Oman qualify for T20 World Cup

Darren Gough is the new interim bowling consultant for England. Hamilton Masakadza becomes Zimbabwe Cricket’s Director of Cricket. Scotland and Oman qualify for T20 World Cup.

Gough appointed England’s bowling coach

Darren Gough has been appointed as bowling consultant for England’s tour to New Zealand. England are currently without a bowling coach after Silverwood was promoted out of the role. Silverwood is a long term friend of Gough and it is believed that this association also played a role in Gough’s appointment.

England are interested in making a series of interim appointments before deciding on a long-term replacement. Gough replaced the bowling coach Kevin Shine recently leaving the ECB and as a full-time appointment might not happen before the next English season he will look to make a mark here. Gough played 58 Tests, 159 ODIs and two T20Is  and has some previous experience of working with England squads.

Masakadza joins Zimbabwe Cricket Board

Hamilton Masakadza has been appointed Zimbabwe Cricket’s Director of Cricket. This newly created role by the national board is aimed at transforming the game in the country both on and off the field. He will officially begin his tenure from November 1. In their last meeting in August, Zimbabwe Cricket took the decision where the board passed a resolution to restructure the management.

Masakadza will define policy, strategy, and programmes of “best practice”. He’ll also be responsible for the recruitment, management and interaction of senior cricket technical staff.

ZC Chairman Tavengwa Mukuhlani opined, “This is a key appointment that clearly indicates our desire to strengthen our cricket across all levels while also improving the game administratively. “

McDonald to coach Australia men’s team

Former Australia cricketer Andrew McDonald is the new assistant coach of the men’s team. McDonald, the newly appointed head coach of IPL side Rajasthan Royals helped Victoria win the Sheffield Shield in his first year as a coach, and a Big Bash League title for Melbourne Renegades earlier this year. He featured in four Tests for Australia and played 95 first-class, 100 List A and 93 Twenty20 matches.

Ben Oliver, CA’s Executive General Manager of National Teams said, “We are excited to have Andrew join the Australian Men’s Team. As a player, Andrew was an outstanding all-rounder, tactician and competitor and a popular teammate. And as a coach, he has demonstrated great leadership and enjoyed remarkable success in all formats. We are confident our playing group will grow under Andrew’s mentorship. We are also proud that our world-class domestic system is providing a pathway to international coaching ranks.”

England Women get a new coach

England Women get their first full-time female coach as Former Australia international Lisa Keightley has joined them replacing Mark Robinson. She will begin working with the squad in January once her commitments as head coach of Perth Scorchers in the Women’s Big Bash League finish.

Keightley played 92 times for Australia as a top order batsman and scored four ODI hundreds. She said, “England are the current 50-over World Champions and they made it to the final of the last ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. They’re a very competitive side and they wouldn’t be in big matches like that if they didn’t have a really strong group of players who can perform on the big stage. I’m really looking forward to getting underway and helping the team progress.”

Scotland crush UAE

Scotland made their experience talk in the important fixture against UAE. Captain Kyle Coetzer and George Munsey added 87 runs for the first wicket before Coetzer was dismissed for 34. Munsey went on to score a brilliant 43 –ball 65 with two fours and five sixes. Later Richie Barrington’s 18-ball 48 and Calum MacLeod’s 12-ball 25 took them to a very strong 198/6.

Chasing a target at a required rate touching 10 was not easy and UAE failed to have a good start. They lost their openers within first three overs. There were contributions from Rameez Shahzad who scored 34 and Muhannad Usman made 20 but there were not much support from the lower order and UAE were all out for 108 in the 19^th over. For Scotland, Safyaan Sharif and Mark Watt both finished with 3/21.

Oman back in World T20

The last qualifier saw Oman and Hong Kong playing a close match and Oman winning by mere 12 runs. Batting first Oman posted 134/ 7 based on an outstanding innings from the opener Jatinder Singh (67*). They were struggling with 42/6 in the 9^th over but Jatinder kept his calm. He first added 42 runs with Aamir Kaleem who scored 17 and then 50 runs in 3.1 overs with Naseem Khushi who scored an explosive 9-ball 26.

Hong Kong had a terrible start and were reduced to 18/5 within the 4^th over. Scot McKechnie (44) and Haroon Arshad added 52 runs for the sixth wicket but after Haroon’s dismissal, they started losing regular wickets and eventually were wrapped up for 122/ 9. Bilal Khan took four wickets for 23 runs to take Oman to back-to-back World T20.