Simon O'Donnell, a multi-talented athlete, forsook a promising career in Australian Rules football in favor of cricket. He subsequently became an indispensable all-rounder for the Australian one-day team and was a member of the squad when it made a resurgent mark with an unexpected victory at the World Cup in 1987. O'Donnell is chiefly recalled for a series of explosive innings in the middle-lower order.
During the one-day side's tour of New Zealand in 1990, O'Donnell enjoyed a career-best performance, taking 5 for 13 against New Zealand at Christchurch in the Rothmans Cup and scoring 20 runs off 19 balls with the aid of 2 fours. Despite this superlative all-rounder performance, he was not named man of the match; instead, Dean Jones received the honor for scoring 107 runs off 143 balls. Australia won the match by a resounding 150 runs.
O'Donnell was elected international cricketer of the year in 1990–91. He recovered from injury to rejoin the Australian one-day team in the 1988–89 season and played 43 more limited-over matches until December 10, 1991, claiming 56 wickets and producing 5 match-winning 50-plus scores, including the fastest half-century in One Day Internationals (18 balls vs. Sri Lanka in Sharjah, 1990). O'Donnell maintained a highly impressive batting strike rate of 80.96 runs per 100 balls in ODIs, nearly double his scoring rate in Tests.
Between 1984 and 1993, O'Donnell played for Victoria in the Sheffield Shield as an all-rounder, scoring a century in his first match. He played 6 Test matches in 1985, 5 on the Ashes tour of England and one at home, but he was more successful in the shorter form of the game due to his low bowling strike rate in five and four-day cricket. He was viewed as a limited-overs specialist with clever medium-paced bowling and explosive lower-order hitting. He participated in 87 ODIs from 1985 to 1992, scoring 1242 runs and taking 108 wickets in his career. He played a significant role in Australia's victory in the 1987 World Cup Final, taking a large number of wickets and ending the tournament as Australia's most economical bowler. Shortly after, however, he began to experience severe pain and was diagnosed with cancer. O'Donnell made a strong recovery and returned to one-day international cricket from 1988-89.
His clean, powerful drives straight off the wicket and through mid-on were particularly effective. However, O'Donnell's intelligent fast-medium bowling often proved to be more pivotal in Australia's one-day fortunes. Since he retired from cricket, O'Donnell has joined the Nine Network's commentary team and is the regular host of The Cricket Show, which airs during the lunch breaks of Tests in Australia.
