Australia hire McInnes as women's coach

	Richard McInnes has made a big backroom contribution to Australia over the past three years © Getty Images

Richard McInnes will trade in his job as Australia's performance analyst to become the national women's head coach. Since accepting the new position in the off-field reshuffle of 2005, McInnes has helped Australia significantly through the meticulous and time-consuming video research he combined with his technical expertise.

When Australia return from the West Indies in mid-July McInnes will step from the background to the front of house as the women's team prepares for the World Cup in Australia next March. He replaces Lisa Keightley, the former international opening batsman, who stepped down in May after 12 months in charge.

"I'm looking forward to an exciting and challenging period over the next two years with the World Cup, Twenty20 World Cup and an Ashes series coming up," McInnes said. "I've learned a lot over the last three years with the Australian men's team and some of those qualities can be beneficial to the women's programme.

"There's been a strong skill focus on the women's game for a long time and I think there's an opportunity to move towards more tactical, game-awareness development. That's something I'll investigate initially."

Before joining the men's team McInnes was a senior coach at the Centre of Excellence and the high performance manager for the Bangladesh Cricket Board. In his new role he will also be in charge of the Australian Institute of Sport women's cricket programme.