Sydney, Feb 12 (IANS): While the Australian cricketers have backed interim coach Andrew McDonald to take up full-time job, the 40-year-old former player has said he needs some more time to decide on the role.

Cricket Australia (CA) made McDonald interim in-charge of the side after Justin Langer sensationally stepped down from the spot, unhappy with the terms and conditions of his new contract. While McDonald will be flying with the team to Pakistan for the month-long Test and limited-overs series, he said he hadn't got time to think about a long-term coaching engagement.

Several players, including Australia's white-ball skipper Aaron Finch, have backed McDonald to take over from Langer as full-time coach of the side, saying the former all-rounder "brings a lot of respect from the players".

"He brings a really good attitude around the group. He's been with the team for quite a while now. It's exciting times," Finch had said recently. The 35-year-old Finch and McDonald have played together for Victoria before playing under his coaching in the Big Bash League (BBL) side Melbourne Renegades.

"I've worked with him for a long time, we played together for a long time, I know he's very good at his job," said Finch.

However, McDonald was non-committal when asked by SEN's Sports Central about the full-time job on Saturday.

"I haven't had time to think about it, I was whisked into the interim role and I suppose it's for Cricket Australia to understand what they're looking for in that head coach and then role that out and obviously run a process," he said.

"That'll be no doubt thorough and then as I said, once the details of that emerge you can start to make a decision as to whether it suits what you're expecting out of the role and the demands of it. JL (Langer) has commented over time that it is a very demanding role to do all three formats for all year round, so I'm not sure what their thoughts are. But I look on with interest to see where they land on that," said McDonald.