Cricket news: Justin Langer, the player conversations and his evolution as Australian coach

Usman Khawaja was painted as someone Justin Langer didn’t get along with during The Test documentary. Now the Aussie coach comes clean on their relationship.

Tim Paine (left) and Australian coach Justin Langer (right) are seen during the Australian Men's cricket team training session at the Gabba in Brisbane, Tuesday, November 19, 2019. Australia will take on Pakistan in the first test at the Gabba from Thursday. (AAP Image/Darren England) NO ARCHIVING

Rumblings of discontent, questions surrounding his methods and a rusty national outfit, Australian coach Justin Langer found himself in a quarantine quandary this year.

Here Langer chats with Ben Horne about what really went down and how he and Australia are shaping up for one of their most important summer’s of cricket.

The ICC T20 Cricket World Cup starts Oct 17 and you can catch the first round on us with Kayo Freebies. Get the play underway at kayosports.com.au/freebies

Do you feel you have the full support of your players after the meetings that were had to address your coaching style?

Yeah I do. It’s been an incredibly humbling experience. My experience in life is that often in the most humbling periods are the best periods for learning and growing and that’s certainly the case for me and I’m sure you can feel it already within the team. It’s a good time to evaluate where I’m at and where we’re at. I was also humbled by the support from people who reached out both inside the walls and outside the walls. I was blown away by that. The big thing about it is it’s been able to really strengthen the relationships I have with the players and the leaders. The conversations I’ve had with Painey and Finchy and Pat Cummins were the best conversations I’ve had with players in my 10 years as a coach. They were honest, they were open and I really respect and admire the guys for that. It’s actually led to a greater level of trust believe it or not. I feel really comfortable from that level of trust we’ve got now. This was a little wake up call. It was a good opportunity to have a look at myself, have a look at where the team is and keep growing and evolving and hopefully I’ve shown over my whole career in Australian cricket that I’ve been able to do that.

The ICC T20 Cricket World Cup starts Oct 17 and you can catch the first round on us with Kayo Freebies. Get the play underway at kayosports.com.au/freebies

You were in hotel quarantine while all this drama was playing out. What did you find the toughest aspect of it to handle?

The fact I wasn’t with my family. But that said, it also provided a great opportunity for us because we were in hotel quarantine with no distractions and that gave us all a chance to sit down and have these honest discussions. To really get right down to the core of any issues or perceived issues was brilliant. As hard as it was at the time, I honestly believe I and we are really thankful we’ve been through it. We are three months down the road now since Adelaide, the boys are buzzing, the coaching staff is buzzing.

Australian coach Justin Langer is confident he has cleared the air with his senior players.

Your recent social media post quoted a passage saying you can only be who you are. Does this mean you don’t feel you have to change who you are as a coach?

Firstly, I wasn’t expecting the reaction, that’s for sure. I love writing, I write my journals, and over this period where we’ve been isolating I said I might start writing some posts and put a bit of positivity out to the world. I was just trying to put some nice things out there so I was shocked by the reaction. There was no cryptic messages. It was actually my daughter had sent me that just before I left and I thought, ‘oh that’s a nice thing I might send that out while I’m sitting at my desk.’ But when it comes to me and my position, I absolutely own the fact I’ve got to keep evolving and growing and developing and getting better as a coach. 100 per cent, yes, I do have to keep doing that. There was no cryptic message in there, I promise. I have a curious mind, but I have an open mind to changing and getting better.

So what have you changed as a coach coming into this World Cup?

It’s all about how are we going to have the best environment for the Australian cricket team. Certainly I have handed over some really clear responsibilities to Finchy and Patty Cummins in terms of the values and where we’re at. You can see they’ve really embraced that and you can literally see their growth and confidence and that’s really important. As a coach you’ve got to be a servant to the players and what I mean by that is you’ve got to be there to help and be there to help guide them to be the best they can possibly be. It’s the same with our coaches and being really clear about our roles and responsibilities. I now have a group of coaches who are all past head coaches and they’re brilliant at what they do. I’ll give you an example. I didn’t go to training (last Tuesday). Anyone who knows me (would be shocked at that), but I had other things on for what we’re doing and I didn’t go to training — because you know what, I didn’t need to. I have players and coaches who were able to get the guys ready. They’re great coaches Andrew McDonald, Michael Di Venuto, Jeff Vaughan and Sri Sriram, that’s what they’re here for, to coach the players, so to be able to hand over more responsibility to the senior players and our coaches is great and it’s actually liberating. I’m enjoying it and I’m sure we and they will get great benefit out of that as we keep moving forward.

Langer and David Warner know this summer looms as one of the most important for Australian cricket in recent memory.

Do you want to keep coaching Australia beyond your current contract which expires next year?

I’ve said publicly before that I would. But to be honest, the biggest lesson I’ve learnt over the past 12-18 months is that you’ve got to stay so focused on every campaign. You might say that’s just a bullshit clichéd answer, but it’s actually the truth. Everything that’s gone on through this Covid period with bubbles and how guys are feeling and how they’re going, it’s easy to get distracted. That’s the lesson. We have a huge campaign here. We are incredibly well organised for this campaign and then we get straight into the Ashes. I’m going to put all my attention into that and then we’ll see what happens after that.

Did you consider walking away when the heat came on you a couple of months ago?

When you go through hard times you have two choices: either quit or you get better. And hopefully in everything I’ve done in my life I haven’t ever taken the first option. That can be a tough path sometimes but hopefully I’ve got the runs on the board to prove that I’m going to keep evolving and getting better and be a novice coach until the last day I coach, wherever that is.

Winning the Ashes will make everyone better and adding a T20 World Cup win would be an unexpected bonus.

Is there anything you would do differently now as you look back over the past year?

At times, I got distracted by other things, so I’d do that differently. The other thing is if I look back, we haven’t been strong enough or clear enough on the importance of honest conversations within the group. It’s crucial in any organisation, any team, any family that you have honest conversations, so I obviously hadn’t provided the environment where we could have those honest conversations together and that’s something that we as a group have learned and we will grow and get better from for sure.

Usman Khawaja was painted as someone you didn’t get along with because you clashed with him during the documentary. Yet he backed you when you were copping it. What does that say?

I was humbled by what Uzzie said. I was thrilled by what he said and I very much appreciated his public support, but I wasn’t surprised because that’s my experience of my relationships with a lot of the players. I feel so close to them. You look back on that documentary and people saw what they saw. On the inside I just laugh and go, ‘if only people knew the great respect I have for Usman Khawaja’ and I feel that with all of my players and hopefully it goes both ways.

What gives you the confidence Australia has the team to break its World Cup drought?

Winning a T20 World Cup is something missing from our rich tapestry of Australian cricket and it’s a piece of the puzzle we want to fit in. What gives me confidence is I think we have an incredibly experienced team now who are focused and really hungry to change that history. There’s a great vibe within the group. There’s a couple of groups of best mates in the team which I always find really positive. Marcus Stoinis, Kane Richardson, Adam Zampa, Ashton Agar and Mitch Marsh are really tight and then guys like Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and again Mitch Marsh is the glue in there as well. Aaron Finch, Andrew McDonald, Matthew Wade and Glenn Maxwell, they’ve all grown up together too. It’s just a really close knit team and for me that’s really exciting as the coach when you have that environment within the group.

Tim Paine and Langer know getting off to a strong start will be crucial this year.

How worried are you about the lack of form and match play for a lot of the squad?

Certainly in our preparation it was an area we knew was going to be one of our challenges. We were lucky that Maxi and Josh Hazlewood played some cricket in the IPL. Steve Smith and Dave Warner have been over here at least being in the conditions. The guys have trained really well, but they’ve also turned up in pristine physical condition — especially a few of them, so they’ll be ready for how hot it is over here. We have two big challenges in the World Cup, that (lack of match practice) and the second one is just going to be how the pitches play after the World Cup. Everyone is aware of that. Hopefully we’re doing everything in our power to get over those things.

Do you expect Ben Stokes to come out for the Ashes, and how do you feel Australia is placed?

There’s nothing we can do about whether Ben Stokes comes, so I’m not going to give it a second thought until we know he’s arrived and then we’ll start thinking about him. That’s literally out of our control. We’ve been through this before with a World Cup into an Ashes. We are well organised, we’ve got really clear roles with everyone and I’m really looking forward to working through these two campaigns.

Originally published as Cricket news: Justin Langer, the player conversations and his evolution as Australian coach