Aussie fielding coach Young to help Indians in ODIs and T20s

The Cricket Board has roped in Australian team's fielding coach Mike Young to help the Indian squad for the Twenty20 and ODI series against Sri Lanka later this month.

Chicago-born Young, a former minor league baseball player in America, is scheduled to arrive on Friday night to join the Indian team, a BCCI source said.

The association with the team is only for the duration of the two Twenty20 internationals on December 9 (Nagpur) and 12 (Mohali) and the subsequent five-match ODI rubber starting in Rajkot on December 15.

India had sacked its full time fielding coach Robin Singh, as well as its bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad, just before the seven-ODI home series against Australia.

The 53-year-old Young was the Australian baseball team's coach at the Seoul Olympic Games in 1988 after playing for Queensland Rams in 1981 and then taking over that team's reins as the player-coach the next year.

Young was approached by the Australian cricket authorities in 2000 to improve the players' catching, throwing and positional skills. His services were discontinued later but in the aftermath of the Australian cricket team's Ashes defeat in 2005, he was re-appointed as a full-time fielding coach.