OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 11.00am.
NATAL coach Graham Ford finally confirmed on Tuesday that he will not be entering the race to become the new SA national cricket coach.
Ford’s decision means that there is now a two-horse race for the national coach’s post – between Northerns coach Peter Kirsten, a former SA captain in the rebel era, and Boland coach Hylton Ackerman, who is also the head coach at SA cricket’s premier nursery, the Plascon Academy.
However, national coaching organiser Jimmy Cook intimated yesterday that it was his understanding if other top applications came in they could still be considered.
Ford was favoured to succeed Woolmer after his excellent work with the SA A side in Sri Lanka and yeoman duty as Woolmer’s assistant in the recent New Zealand, reports Business Day. But Tuesday he said he did not feel able to devote the amount of time necessary to do the job properly at this point.
Family concerns and spending time with his children take priority at this point for Ford.
He noted that Corrie van Zyl also opted out of the travelling roadshow of international cricket. Van Zyl was Woolmer’s assistant on the tour of England last winter.
Ford said he had learned a great deal on the recent tour of New Zealand as Woolmer’s assistant, and he hoped to put that knowledge to good use in his continued role as Dolphins coach.
He said the KwaZulu-Natal Cricket Union was thinking about splitting amateur and professional cricket and that he might keep some part of a coaching organisation portfolio in addition to resuming his duties as team coach now that former coach Frans Cronje has decided to go to Stellenbosch to take up new duties there.