Andrew McDonald coached Australia to both the World Test Championship and 50-over World Cup titles in 2023. From a turbulent start following Justin Langer’s exit, Jo Harman examines why McDonald’s calm approach to the job works. This article first appeared in issue 74 of Wisden Cricket Monthly.
This article first appeared in issue 74 of Wisden Cricket Monthly.
Almost two years on, the fallout from Justin Langer’s messy ousting as Australia’s head coach still lingers. Only a couple of months ago, Matthew Hayden told this publication that he “wouldn’t have any part of trying to coach Australia” if offered the opportunity because he felt his former opening partner had been treated so shoddily by both Cricket Australia and the players he had coached to Ashes and T20 World Cup glory.
Hayden, somewhat ironically, then went on to bemoan the lack of “former greats” employed by the governing body in leadership roles. “That, to me, is surprising considering we’ve just come out of the three greater eras or decades of Australian cricket.”
To Hayden – and to other former teammates who leapt to Langer’s defence – this is a question of lineage, of respect, of building greatness upon greatness: drilling the glories of the past into the players of the present and mythologising the cult of the Baggy Green.
It was a core principle during Langer’s four-year reign as head coach and it brought some success, restoring pride in the team after the trauma of Sandpapergate. But that level of intensity always had a shelf life. Eventually the players tired of it, with Pat Cummins saying he felt his team would “benefit from a more collaborative approach” following Langer’s acrimonious exit in February 2022.
Into the breach stepped Andrew McDonald, Langer’s No.2 since 2019. A resourceful all-rounder who played four Tests during a solid but unremarkable career, McDonald is not by any measure an Australian great. He doesn’t command the respect of a room by the number of Test hundreds he made (none) or wickets he took (nine), and his press conferences rarely offer the kind of juicy soundbite that his predecessors Langer and Darren Lehmann were fond of.
What he does have is a well-rounded and silverware-sprinkled CV and a demeanour which appears to make him universally popular with the players who work under him; from Leicestershire (who he coached in 2014 before he had retired from playing) to Victoria (who he led to the Sheffield Shield title in his first season in charge in 2016/17, and again in 2018/19) to the Melbourne Renegades (Big Bash winners under his leadership in the second of those campaigns) and during IPL stints with Royal Challengers Bangalore and Rajasthan Royals.
McDonald is devoted to his craft. He had already completed his coaching qualifications by the time he made his Test debut in 2009 and is regarded as an excellent technical coach as well as having the people skills to manage big personalities in high-pressure situations. “I think he’s the calmest coach I’ve worked with in terms of controlling his emotions,” Australian seamer Scott Boland told the Telegraph earlier this year.
When Australia triumphed in Pakistan in early 2022 – winning their first Test series in Asia since 2011 – Cummins was quick to praise the impact of McDonald, who was interim coach at the time. “The boys absolutely love him,” said the skipper. “Very diligent, very thorough, strategic, very organised. I’ve said before it’s not my place to employ the coach, but Ronnie [McDonald] has been fantastic.”
A couple of weeks later McDonald was handed the job on a full-time basis across all formats and has hardly put a foot wrong since, overseeing commanding Test series wins over South Africa, West Indies and Pakistan, a creditable 2-1 defeat in India, coming agonisingly close to a first Ashes win on English soil for 22 years, and then ruining Narendra Modi’s World Cup party with a stunning victory that was a triumph of precision planning.
At a time when players hold more power than ever before and expect coaching on their own terms, McDonald’s personable, adaptable approach appears perfectly suited for the requirements of overseeing a national team, particularly one led by a captain who has no time for drama.
“The environment you create can help you have your players at their best for longer, can help your staff be at their best for longer, and if we’ve got that attitude, then hopefully that translates into performance,” said McDonald shortly after taking on his current role. Almost two years into his tenure, the results speak for themselves.
