Border has credentials to takeover as Oz cricket coach: Jones

MELBOURNE - Should current Australian cricket team coach Tim Neilsen be axed, then former captain Allan Border must be among the frontrunners to take on the assignment, says former middle-order batsman Dean Jones.

Jones, fresh from a Bulls’ lunch in Brisbane, said he expected Border’s name to be among the list of possible replacements to Nielsen be axed once a Cricket Australia review is completed later this year.

“He [Border] has got the cred (credentials) to do it, he has coached from under-19s right the way through, he has seen a lot of the players in domestic cricket,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Jones, as saying.

He added: “He knows how to play international cricket and how to prepare and he doesn’t take any bulls— from anyone.”

Border, 55, is currently a commentator on pay television.

Jones previously used his weekly column in The Saturday Age over summer to call for an under-siege Nielsen to be replaced by another former captain, Steve Waugh.

“I went for Steve Waugh but Steve Waugh is too busy,” Jones said.

“I never really thought of ‘AB’ but he is in a good place. All of his kids have grown up now so he can afford to travel a little bit. It all comes down to the fire in his belly if he wants to do it,” Jones said.

Former South African coach Mickey Arthur, now leading Western Australia, has also been touted as a candidate, so too former cricketer and hockey legend Ric Charlesworth.

Nielsen is currently serving a three-year contract, and leading officials have indicated they would be willing to pay him out if it was felt he was not the right man to guide the side once the World Cup, beginning next Saturday on the sub-continent, is over. (ANI)