Justin Langer has said he has had no contact from the England and Wales Cricket Board about coaching the men’s Test team, and expressed scepticism over whether the proposed structure of having the new red-ball coach operate alongside their predecessor, Brendon McCullum, who remains in charge of the white-ball sides, can work.
The 55-year-old, who played 105 Tests for Australia and coached them between 2018 and 2022, was an early frontrunner for the England job after McCullum was sacked this month, but preliminary interviews have now been held with the candidates favoured by Rob Key, the ECB’s managing director of men’s cricket. These are believed to include Tom Moody, another Australian, the New Zealander Stephen Fleming, and the English coaches Jonathan Trott and Richard Dawson.
Langer said that, although “I haven’t heard from anyone”, he would not dismiss the idea of coaching England. “There’s three [main] coaching roles in the world: the Australia head coach, the India head coach and the England head coach,” he said. “It’s all hypothetical, isn’t it? They’re the biggest teams … When it comes to coaching, it is a career and everyone looks at all opportunities, don’t they?”
Speaking on the Stick to Cricket podcast, Langer said if he were appointed he would want to have oversight of all men’s senior teams, and that England’s only chance of success with split coaches would be if they appointed someone to lead the Test side who had an identical approach to McCullum.
“It can work if you get the right people, and they’ve got to get on very well, they’ve got to have the same thinking,” he said. “My personal view has always been that if you’re the head coach you should oversee all of it. It doesn’t mean you have to be there for all of it. But they’ve got to be really on the same page. And the director of cricket has to be. They’ve got to work hand in glove. If they work well together it could work, but there hasn’t been too many examples where it has worked.
“If you’re the head coach of the Test team, you want your 11 best players on the park. It’s personnel, that’s a big part of it. What’s more important, the World Test Championship or the T20 World Cup? It’s like a game of chess now, honestly.”
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Langer is in England coaching Manchester Super Giants, who after two completed games remain unbeaten in the Hundred. He also criticised the techniques of some current England players. “What I am nervous about, watching the Ashes last year, is the deterioration of batting technique,” he said. “In short-form cricket we all see these tricks, slower balls and wide yorkers. If you’re bold enough as a bowler to bowl a good length, even in T20 now, you’re going to expose batters because there’s no footwork. Players just think they’re going to go and tee off.”
