Dizzy close to Australia coaching job Chris Barrett Cricket Australia are on the brink of poaching one of their own back from the old enemy with Jason Gillespie set to be installed as the national team's new full-time fast bowling coach. 
In what stands to be a significant coup for Darren Lehmann, it can be revealed discussions about bringing the successful Yorkshire coach home are at an advanced level.
The pending appointment would also cast Gillespie, who has ambitions to coach Australia, into the frame as a contender alongside Justin Langer to ultimately succeed his former state and national teammate in the top job. Lehmann has been given a licence by Cricket Australia's general manager of team performance, Pat Howard, to pick and sign a full-time replacement for Craig McDermott, who left the staff after the World Twenty20 in   March.
The head coach told an Adelaide radio station last month that he hoped to entice Gillespie back to Australia and it is believed the country's seventh-highest wicket- taker is keen to return home with his family.
That could be secured as soon as next month with a deal on the cards that would see Gillespie take over the tutelage of Australia's pacemen after South African Allan Donald winds up his interim stint.
Donald is signed for Australia's tour of Sri Lanka, which starts in   July, but with Gillespie committed to leading Yorkshire's bid for a third successive English county championship his tenure could well be extended into the summer to take in the home series against his former employer South Africa.
A starting date for Gillespie would be further delayed into next year if he was given the green light to honour a contract to resume his role as coach of Adelaide Strikers in the Big Bash League in   December and   January. Under that scenario he would join the Australian staff for the Test series in India, which is pencilled in for next   February and   March.
Gillespie, 41, has made an enormous impression in Yorkshire, arriving in Leeds in 2011 after the county was relegated to division two and delivering the first of two championships three years later.
Australian selectors, meanwhile, on Tuesday announced a 15-man squad for the three-Test series in Sri Lanka that included NSW left-arm orthodox Steve O'Keefe alongside the country's premier spinner, Nathan Lyon.
O'Keefe toured India last winter with Australia A and claimed 14 wickets in the two unofficial Tests against India A.
He said he had learnt about the peculiarities of bowling in subcontinental conditions from his debut against Pakistan in 2014 and in India last year, and hopes to continue in the same vein in Sri Lanka. "To be able to have that opportunity against the likes of Kohli ... and have success with it, is certainly a confidence booster," O'Keefe said.
+ AUSTRALIAN TEST SQUAD Squad for   July/  August Sri Lanka tour: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Joe Burns, Usman Khawaja, Adam Voges, Shaun Marsh, Mitchell Marsh, Moises Henriques, Peter Nevill, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Nathan Lyon, Steve O'Keefe, Jackson Bird, Nathan Coulter-Nile.