LANGER ON THE BACK FOOT
LESS than a year into his role as Australian coach, Justin Langer is starting to show the first signs of the heavy strain he’s found himself under, blowing up at a press conference after being quizzed about selections.
Langer was always unflappable in his playing days for Australia but is growing increasingly frustrated by the relentless scrutiny that goes with his new job as the team lurches from one defeat to the next.
He’s been doing his best to talk up his players and point out the few positive signs but the blunt reality is that the results remain as dire as ever and the pressure is starting to tell.
Normally a calm, wisecracker in front of the press, Langer apologised to a journalist after losing his cool yesterday when asked about Glenn Maxwell’s baffling omission from the Test side.
The hard-hitting Victorian has been picked for the Australian one-day squad that will play India in a three-match series, starting at the Sydney Cricket Ground, but his ex- clusion from the Test side remains largely unanswered.
“I don’t like getting grumpy but there’s so many stories that go around about so much stuff,” Langer growled.
“I didn’t mean to get grumpy. We can talk about it after. But the truth is a beautiful thing. Anyway, sorry, what are we talking about?”
The only thing everyone is talking about more than Australia’s losses in the nine months since the ball-tampering scandal is the inconsistent team selection that has left everyone scratching their heads. The selectors have not been able to fill the void left by Steve Smith and David Warner so have made radical changes to the Test and oneday squads in the hope things will come good in time for this year’s World Cup and Ashes series in England.
“We literally think about this stuff every single day,”
Langer said.
“That’s our job. We’ve been planning this for a long time.
“Our results over the last two or three years have been not what we’re used to in Australian cricket.
“We know the perfect team we’d like to have for England but the schedule makes it really hard to have them together all the time but over the next few months we will start getting together a group of players together and building.”
Langer says the series loss to India was made to look worse than it was because the tourists “sucked the life out of us” with their disciplined batting, and the only way forward was through hard work.
“We’ve got to get better but we’re crystal clear of the direction we’re taking,” Langer said.