Donald to help MacLeod with bowling action

Former South African fast bowler Allan Donald has said he will help Scotland paceman Calum MacLeod revive his career after the 20-year-old was left out of the national team over concerns about his bowling action.

The right-arm fast bowler was reported by Brian Jerling and Enamul Hoque-Moni, the on-field umpires, as well as third umpire Sandy Scotland, after Scotland's Intercontinental Cup match against Canada in Aberdeen. In their report, the umpires raised concerns over MacLeod's bowling action and felt it needed to be scrutinised further under the relevant ICC process.

Pending the result of the assessment, the bowler can continue to play and bowl in international cricket but runs the risk of being called. But MacLeod was stood down after consultations between Cricket Scotland coaches, the ICC and the umpires.

Donald, who is the bowling coach at MacLeod's county side Warwickshire, is confident that his action can be rectified but thinks he should forget about bowling again competitively for the next few months.

MacLeod led the attack for Scotland in last month's World Twenty20 in England and it was the television coverage which set alarm bells ringing at Edgbaston, where former Scotland allrounder Dougie Brown works closely with MacLeod as academy coach.

Donald was optimistic and said: "Calum is a talented cricketer and we think highly of him at Warwickshire, and hopefully it will not take too long to correct this. But it will take a while because we have to remodify a few things in his action.

"Until last year there was no problem at all but during the World Twenty20 from a certain camera angle it became obvious to myself and Dougie Brown and head coach Ashley Giles that there might be a problem. We have sat him down and talked to him about it and he has responded well.

"I have spoken to a lot of people about this chucking issue and there are many inconsistencies in the process by which they judge if a bowler is throwing or not. Young players get used to doing something day in day out and we have to spot this in a young bowler earlier in their development and sort it out then."