Buchanan wants United session with Alex Ferguson

John Buchanan's quest for left-field ideas may lead him to football's version of Old Trafford when Australia play the third Test in Manchester. While his team is in town, Buchanan hopes to skip out the back of the cricket ground to the "Theatre of Dreams" for a meeting with the Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson.

A post-match bottle of red wine, a loose tradition among the football bosses, is probably out of the question, but Buchanan is keen to share ideas on world domination. Cricket Australia has been trying to arrange a meeting with Ferguson, the Scot who has been guiding United since 1986, but Buchanan told AAP that he had been a "little bit elusive". At the moment, Ferguson is more worried about the Champions League draw.

"We don't know until we get there if we can learn something from them or they can learn something from us," Buchanan said. "Hopefully it's a two-way street. There are different levels of exchange and how that benefits you. You sit back and reflect a little bit about some of the things that they do and how that might work in your team."

Buchanan would also like to tap into the thoughts of Clive Woodward, the 2003 Rugby World Cup-winning coach with England, but the side has already been to Southampton, where Woodward is a now a fancy-named assistant with the Championship football club. The moves are not new for Buchanan, who often swaps ideas with the coaches of winter sports in Australia and has brought in a baseball coach, yoga instructor and computer analysts to give Australia an edge.