Adrian Birrell appointed South Africa assistant coach
According to a media release by Cricket South Africa, Adrian Birrell has been appointed the new assistant coach while Claude Henderson is the new specialist spin bowling coach on a consultancy basis.
South Africa head coach Russell Domingo on Thursday announced the national team's new technical team till the next edition of the ICC World Cup in Australia and New Zealand in 2015.
According to a media release by Cricket South Africa, Adrian Birrell has been appointed the new assistant coach while Claude Henderson  is the new specialist spin bowling coach on a consultancy basis.
Birrell, 52, represented Eastern Province and SA Universities at first-class level as an opening batsman and leg-spin bowler and has an impressive coaching CV that included spells as head coach with Ireland and the England under-19 team. This included taking Ireland to the 2007 ICC World Cup in the West Indies where they beat Pakistan by three wickets to knock-out them out of the tournament, and also beat Bangladesh and tied with Zimbabwe.
Henderson, 41, has just retired from first-class cricket during a career that saw him take more than 900 wickets and represent the Proteas in seven Test matches.
"Adrian will take special responsibility for mentoring our franchise coaches," commented Domingo. "We intend to involve these coaches in our tours when circumstances permit.
"He will also be the specialist fielding coach, a position that used to be occupied by Rob Walter.
"Claude, as is the case with our performance coach, Paddy Upton, will be available to the Proteas for 100 days per year. We have been keen to appoint a specialist spin bowling coach for some time now, particularly as we will be playing a lot of cricket in Asia in the year ahead. Claude will accompany the team for the two away tours to Sri Lanka and to the UAE to play Pakistan and then, of course, we have the ICC World Twenty20 coming up in Bangladesh next year.
"When Claude is not working full time with the Proteas he will continue to assist at the High Performance Centre with the South Africa A and Emerging Squads and will thus have a very good insight into the next level of talent coming through the system."
Proteas management team: Dr. Mohammed Moosajee (team manager/doctor), Riaan Muller (team logistics), Russell Domingo (Head Coach), Adrian Birrell (Assistant Coach), Allan Donald (specialist bowling coach), Brandon Jackson (physiotherapist), Lerato Malekutu (Media officer).
Consultants: Paddy Upton (Performance Coach), Claude Henderson (specialist spin bowling coach), Prasanna Angoram (Video Analyst), Zunaid Wadee (Close Protection Officer)
Temporary appointment: Greg King (Conditioning coach)