Simon Patrick O'Donnell (born 26 January 1963) is an Australian former cricketer, VFL footballer, and horse racing and cricket commentator. He is currently a horse breeder and enabler. He is a former record holder for the fastest One Day International half-century. He was educated at Deniliquin High School and Assumption College. O'Donnell was a part of the Australian team that won their first world title during the 1987 Cricket World Cup.
O'Donnell played as an all-rounder for Victoria in the Sheffield Shield between 1984 and 1993, scoring a century in his first match. He went on to play 6 Test matches in 1985, 5 on the Ashes tour of England and one at home, but with a low bowling strike rate in 5 and 4 day cricket, he was more successful in the shorter form of the game.
Seen as a limited-overs specialist with clever medium pace bowling and explosive lower order hitting, he played 87 ODIs between 1985 and 1992, scoring 1242 runs and taking 108 wickets in his career. He played in Australia's 1987 World Cup Final victory and was a significant wicket-taker and finished the World cup as Australia's most economical bowler, but soon after he suffered severe pain that was diagnosed as non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
He recovered with treatment to return to the Australian One-Day team in the 1988–89 season and played 43 more limited-overs matches till 10 December 1991 and claimed 56 wickets and made 5 match winning 50 plus scores including the fastest half-century in One Day Internationals (18 balls v Sri Lanka, Sharjah, 1990, which lasted for 6 years until Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya scored 50 from 17 balls v Pakistan at Singapore on 7 April 1996). O'Donnell maintained a very good batting strike rate of 80.96 runs per 100 balls in ODIs, almost double his scoring rate in Tests.
He was captain of Victoria for five seasons from 1988–89 until his retirement in 1993. This was a mixed period, which included a Sheffield Shield victory in 90–91, but Victoria also finished last in 1988–89, 1989–90 and 1992–93.
O'Donnell was voted international cricketer of the year in 1990–91.
As a junior, Simon played Australian rules football for Assumption College, Kilmore, where he kicked 100 goals in his senior year. This led to him being recruited for senior football by the St Kilda Football Club, where his father Kevin had played 49 games on a forward flank in the 1940s. Coincidentally, Kevin O'Donnell played alongside two more notable Australian cricketers; Sam Loxton and Keith Miller, members of the 1948 Invincibles.
O'Donnell played 24 games and kicked 18 goals between 1982 and 1983 in what was then the VFL. However, he had continued to play cricket and retired from football to focus on his cricket career.
O'Donnell's son James made his AFL debut for Western Bulldogs playing against Carlton on 13 May 2023.
O'Donnell hosted Melbourne radio station Sport 927's morning program with Kevin Bartlett until 2004.
With the Nine Network, O'Donnell has been a commentator of cricket and now presents The Cricket Show. Having owned and managed race horses through his company, O'Donnell Thoroughbreds International, he is also used as an expert on horseracing on Nine's racing coverage.
During the mid-1990s as part of his work with Channel 9, O'Donnell was a regular on the daytime program The Midday Show, teaming up with former rugby league footballer Paul "Fatty" Vautin on Fridays to give an overview of the weekends sporting events, usually the AFL and NSWRL competitions, and to give their racing tips. The pair would generally get into silly situations (e.g. coming out onto the set dressed in blowup Sumo suits), or would be on location such as in early 1994 when O'Donnell was taken on some hot laps of the high speed Calder Park Thunderdome oval racetrack in Melbourne with multiple AUSCAR champion Brad Jones.
In November 2011, it was announced that O'Donnell would replace James Brayshaw as host of The Sunday Footy Show. However, in November 2012, Nine announced that O'Donnell had left the network.
O'Donnell made his first class debut for Victoria against South Australia at the MCG in February 1984.
The following summer his bowling gathered attention when he took the wickets of Kepler Wessels and Allan Border in Sheffield Shield game against Queensland, as well as making 54.
He made 78 in a run-heavy game against the touring West Indies and hit 42 off 43 balls and 129 against Western Australia.
He was selected in the Prime Ministers XI to play the West Indies.
In January 1985 O'Donnell was named in the 12 man Australian one day squad.