Former Australia batter Michael Klinger has been appointed as the head coach of the Women's Premier League (WPL) franchise Gujarat Giants, replacing Australia's veteran Rachael Haynes. Klinger is set to work in tandem with Giants' mentor Mithali Raj and bowling coach Nooshin Al Khadeer.
The former India skipper lauded the move to rope in Klinger and mentioned that the youngsters in the team would benefit from his experience.
"Working with Michael will help bring out the best in the Gujarat Giants players. His expertise with the bat is also well-known, and will surely benefit some of the younger members of our team. We look forward to having Klinger in the dressing room. We are sure of attaining success with him as head coach," Raj was quoted as saying by ESPNcricinfo.
Notably, Klinger is regarded as a domestic stalwart and someone who was just unfortunate to play in the same era as some of the legends of the game from Australia.
The right-handed batter scored 11320 runs in 182 first-class games. He also amassed 7449 runs and 5960 runs in his List A and T20 career.
The dearth of opportunities at the international level saw him play just three T20Is for the Australian team.
Klinger has a fair amount of coaching experience. He served as the head coach of Melbourne Renegades for two seasons before taking up the role of assistant coach at Sydney Thunder in the Women's Big Bash League (WBBL).
The move to make Klinger a part of the coaching set-up seems to be a consequence of Giants' poor performance in the inaugural edition of the WPL. The side lost their designated skipper in the first game of the season after Beth Mooney was ruled out of the tournament due to a calf injury she sustained in the first game.
Giants announced Sneh Rana to lead the side for the rest of the tournament and replaced Mooney with Laura Wolvaardt for the season.
Despite the makeshift changes, Giants endured a forgettable season as they lost six out of their eight games and finished at the bottom of the table.
