Former Australian fast bowler Nathan Bracken and former coach of the Central Coast Mariners, Lawrie McKinna will run as independents in a Central Coast federal election, in a development that has shocked the political establishment.

According to Fox Sports, Bracken, the former Australian fast bowler, will take on incumbent MP Craig Thomson, who stood down from the Labor Party in May after a series of tawdry allegations surrounding his alleged misuse of union credit card.

Bracken retired from international cricket in 2011 due to a knee injury and is currently suing his former employers, Cricket Australia, for a figure believed to be 1 million dollars over their handling of his injury, the report said.

The 35-year-old announced he would contest the seat of Dobell on Twitter on Monday morning and also revealed Lawrie McKinna, the former coach of the Central Coast Mariners and current mayor of Gosford, would run for the seat of Robertson, the report added.

The former cricketer said that having come to the Central Coast as an outsider, he had fallen in love with the place, and wanted to stay and raise a family there, living a long happy life.

He said that the hospitals and the roads in the region needed improvement and said that this move was about giving Central Coast a voice, adding that he has always been interested in politics.u00a0