Afghanistan appoint McDermott as fielding coach ahead of SL tour

KABUL: The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) on Thursday announced the appointment of Shane McDermott as the new senior men’s team fielding coach.

ACB added that McDermott is set to join the team on February 1 during Afghanistan men’s all-format tour to Sri Lanka.

McDermott is a High Performance Level Three Coaching Certificate Holder and carries a wealth of experience of working with teams in international and domestic levels. He was recently the assistant fielding coach of Bangladesh men’s team, a role he held since 2022.

He has also served at the same capacity with the Sri Lankan senior men’s team from 2019-2022 and was head coach of the Sri Lanka A team for three-year period. Before his stints with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, McDermott worked as the interim national team assistant/fielding coach and Interim National A Team Analyst And Fielding Coach at Cricket Australia’s National Cricket Centre from 2012 to 2019.

Additionally, he played a role in coaching setups during recent ICC events, including the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup 2023 and the ICC Men’s T20I World Cup events in 2022 and 2021, with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka teams.

McDermott has also served as the national academy head coach/national team strength and conditioning head coach at the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) from 2005 to 2007, after holding similar positions in Western Australia Cricket Association and Tasmania teams in Australian domestic cricket circuit.

Afghanistan had recently appointed Andrew Puttick as the new batting coach of the men’s team, with the ACB adding that they would be hiring a performance analyst and an S&C trainer in future.

On the tour of Sri Lanka, Afghanistan will be playing its first-ever Test match against the hosts’ in Colombo, followed by three ODIs and three T20Is from February 2-21.