Australia's fielding coach Mike Young will join the Indian cricket team as a consultant for the Twenty20 and One-day series against Sri Lanka later this month, the BCCI said in Mumbai on Friday.
"Michael Young has been appointed Fielding Consultant to the Indian Team. He will join the team on 6 December 2009 and will be with the team till the end of the ODI series against Sri Lanka," BCCI secretary N Srinivasan said in a statement.
Chicago-born Young, a former minor league baseball player in America, is scheduled to arrive on Friday to join the Indian team.
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 series 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' fielding. 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.
