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| Wednesday, 28 January 2004 |
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Lehmann needed back for Lanka tour, says coach Hours after Darren Lehmann placed a cricket bat into his friend's hearse and watched David Hookes leave Adelaide Oval for the last time, Australian coach John Buchanan expressed hope that the distraught South Australian could now move on and find his way back to international cricket. But Buchanan could not say whether Lehmann could overcome his grief and regain his fitness in time for next month's tour of Sri Lanka. Buchanan's main hope was that Lehmann, who embodies many of the free-spirited, larrikin qualities that were celebrated in Hookes at his funeral yesterday, would not feel the need to carry Hookes's legacy as he tried to re-establish himself in the Australian team. Lehmann is highly valued in Australian cricket circles as a general to assist captain Ricky Ponting, and his subcontinental tour prospects will be helped by being an expert player of spin. His international career was stalled by an Achilles injury in October, causing him to miss series in India and Australia. And cricket was the furthest thing from his mind when - clearly distressed after being with Hookes the night he was fatally injured - he appeared before the media last Friday. Still, Buchanan said Lehmann had not shown any signs in their talks that the passion to work his way back into international cricket had dimmed, and encouraged him to take up the theme of yesterday's funeral and move on with cricket the way Hookes would have wanted. "I spoke to him today and asked how he came through it and he said he came through it OK," Buchanan said. "I'm sure he's going to have emotional swings but the biggest thing will be actually getting back and playing and captaining South Australia. "Hopefully he doesn't sort of carry any responsibility. I'm just suggesting he's seen to be the modern-day David Hookes in a sense for South Australia, and really he's the modern-day Darren Lehmann, he's not David Hookes. "Hopefully he doesn't feel that he needs to carry any of that. He just needs to be Darren Lehmann. "It's tragic and it's sad but life moves on and so does his life, and his family and his cricket. That's what's important to him. |
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