Cricket Australia: Shelley Nitschke Named Head Coach Of Australia Women's Cricket Team

Cricket Australia on Tuesday appointed Shelley Nitschke as the new head coach of the Australian women’s cricket team for a four-year term.

The 45-year-old has been the interim head coach since May after the resignation of Matthew Mott, who left to become England’s white-ball coach. She led Australia to win the Gold Medal in a historic Commonwealth Games debut after the team registered a narrow victory over India in the finals in Birmingham in July.

One of the world’s best all-rounders, Nitschke broke into the Australian team in 2005 at the age of 28 and went on to play 80 one-day internationals, 36 Twenty20 internationals and six Test matches. She scored over 3,000 runs and took over 150 wickets with her left-arm orthodox bowling.

Nitschke received the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year Award in 2010 and has won four consecutive Belinda Clarke Awards (2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012). She retired from international cricket in 2011 and worked in the coaching department for South Australia, Adelaide Strikers and Cricket Australia.

Nitschke was appointed assistant coach of the Australian women’s team in 2018 and head coach of the Perth Scorchers WBBL team in 2019, leading the team to its first WBBL title last summer. She will honour her Perth Scorchers contract for this season before stepping down at the end of the WBBL-8.

“I’m honoured to have been given this opportunity to lead the team full-time and to continue to build on the legacy created by Matthew Mott. While I enjoyed my time working as an assistant coach, I feel the time is right to step up and lead this group in what’s shaping as a new era with a new-look coaching group and the retirement of Rachael Haynes,” she said in an official release.

“The loss of Rach will no doubt be felt, but it presents a great opportunity for others to put their hands up both from a leadership perspective as well as with the bat and in the field,” she added.

Shelley Nitschke’s first assignment will be a five-match T20 tour of India in December, followed by a bilateral series at home against Pakistan in January to wrap up Australia’s preparations for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa in February.

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