Australia call on baseball coach

Australia have summoned an American baseball coach to help rid them of the fielding fumbles and missed catches which blighted their tour of England this summer. Mike Young, a senior American baseball coach who once attended spring training with the San Francisco Giants, has worked with Australia's one-day team for five years, but this appointment is on a more full-time basis.

He conducted fielding drills during a training session on Monday, ahead of the first of three one-dayers against the World XI on Wednesday. As well as coaching Australia's fielders, Young spent four weeks with the England team in 2004, before their tour to South Africa. Young told AFP he was excited to be given the opportunity of working full-time with Australia:

"I've made no bones about wanting to work more on a full-time basis with cricket. I gave up my baseball career to do this because I believe in it."

Australia's fielding during their Ashes campaign in the summer surprised many. They had, until recently, been faultless in the field, and Young doesn't see his coaching role restricted to just the national team:

"I want to do it with coaches around the country, too, not just with the Australian team. If they speak to me and say 'are you interested?' Absolutely, I'm interested. For the last three years, I've said I want to do this full-time - it's my goal, my passion and I want to finish my career with it.

"These are the best players in the world and I enjoy working with these athletes. It's just a matter of working at them on a day-in, day-out basis. There is no doubt in my mind, these guys are the best athletes in the world that I've seen as far as cricketers, it's just a matter of repetition and getting back and doing some of the things that we've worked on for three years."