Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting believes that Justin Langer has done everything possible and Cricket Australia has no other option but to renew the head coach’s contract. Under Langer’s tenure, Australia managed to win the men’s T20 World Cup and then the Ashes. Earlier, there was intense scrutiny around his position as coach, but these wins have helped in eradicating the “noise”. However, the success has not resulted in the firm backing from players for Langer.
“I can’t see how he’s not offered another contract. I know there was a bit of noise created the last couple of weeks and Cricket Australia giving no assurances to him continuing on,” cricket.com.au quoted Ponting as saying.
“I can’t see how Justin can’t go on. The way that I would equate it is if Justin is not to be offered another deal on the back of the best coaching year of his life, that’s like (Ashes player-of-the-series) Travis Head not getting offered a contract next year,” he added.
Langer had taken over from Darren Lehmann in 2018 in the aftermath of the ‘Sandpaper Gate’ which saw David Warner and Steve Smith serve out one-year bans from international cricket.
“Justin’s been asked to change a lot of things about the way that he coached. He’s been able to do that. We’ve all seen how much of a back seat he’s taken the last few months compared to beforehand,” said Ponting.
“He’s got the assistants more heavily involved which is one of the things that apparently needed to change around the group. He’s done everything that’s been asked of him and the results have followed. So if he wants to continue on, I can’t see how he doesn’t get another two- or three-year contract,” he added.
Promoted
Further talking about Langer, Ponting said: “The input of a couple of senior players would be enough. I don’t see why a fringe player should get a say. I don’t understand why they’d even be asking a lot of the players to be honest.”
“Pat fine, Finchy fine – the captains of the teams respectively, maybe a couple more of the senior guys – but that’s all. I don’t think it needs to go any further than that,”
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