Zimbabwe rope in Makhaya Ntini and Marvan Atapattu

Zimbabwe has appointed South African Makhaya Ntini as an assistant coach and former Sri Lanka coach Marvan Atapattu as a batting consultant. Ex-Proteas paceman Ntini will coach the Zimbabwe bowlers while Atapattu will also assist the head coach Dav Whatmore by working with the batsmen for the tour of Bangladesh.

Ntini, 38, has played 101 Tests, 173 ODIs and 10 T20Is for South Africa over a period of 13 years. Zimbabwe Cricket (ZC) says he will begin work from February 16. Ntini is one of the greatest players to have played for the Proteas, sitting joint-third on 390 wickets with Allan Donald behind Shaun Pollock and Dale Steyn in the list of all-time Test wicket-takers for his country. He also took 265 one-day international wickets in a highly successful career at the highest level. The 38-year-old has signed a two-year contract to replace previous bowling coach Douglas Hondo, who will now work with the Zimbabwe A team.

Former Sri Lanka captain Atapattu resigned as coach of his country last September and has been added to the Zimbabwe coaching staff for the four-match T20I series with Bangladesh, which starts on Friday, with a view to taking a more permanent role. Zimbabwe head to Bangladesh on the back of losing both T20Is against Afghanistan in Sharjah and also suffering a 3-2 ODI series defeat against the same opponents.

In 2009, Atapattu had a coaching stint with the Fingara Cricket Academy in Sri Lanka. He had a short stint as Canada’s batting coach and helped them qualify for the 2011 World Cup. In 2010, Marvan Atapattu was appointed as head coach of the Singaporean cricket team for a one-year period, which was his first full-time assignment as the coach of a national side. In April 2011, after the World Cup, he was named as the batting coach of the Sri Lankan national side. He officially took over as head coach in September 2014 becoming the team’s first local coach in 15 years.