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Justin Langer should stand down as ODI coach

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Roar Guru
27th July, 2019
17

The World Cup is done and dusted, which means we can go back to not caring about ODI cricket until the next World Cup.

This means that we need to start thinking about that campaign, and to kick things off Justin Langer should step down as ODI coach.

There’s no reason one person should coach all three formats. Actually, yes there is: it’s called ‘the coach wants control’.

This isn’t a personal slight on Langer. I don’t think he should be national coach – I think that job should go to Jason Gillespie – but even if Gillespie were in the job, I would suggest he should step down too.

Justin Langer

(Scott Barbour/Getty Images)

Coaching a national side is a very tough job. You’ve got to deal with media, managing egos, politics, travel, selectors, officials, executives, and fans as well as the actual, you know, coaching.

It’s unrealistic to expect one person to be on top of his or her game over three formats. A specialist ODI coach will be able to focus on that format.

He or she will be able to be more across what domestic one-day playing talent is out there, what tactics other teams are using, what forward planning needs to be implemented et cetera without being distracted by thinking about what Test and T20 series were coming up.

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This would enable the Test coach to focus on that format, and I think there should be a specialist T20 coach too.

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Has any country really prospered in all three formats under the one coach? It adds to a workload and grinds down coaches. Maybe if Darren Lehmann had resigned after the 2015 World Cup, sandpapergate wouldn’t have happened.

Justin Langer wanted to coach the team to a World Cup. I get that. But he’s done it, it’s time to move on. I’m sure he wants a chance at revenge, but tough – he had a go, it didn’t work out, move on.

I think coaches, like captains, are only entitled to one World Cup campaign and two Ashes series. After that they are just being greedy. And they get stale.

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There are plenty of other options out there to coach Australia. Pick a state coach. Or someone from overseas. Or a former international coach.

Our preparation for this World Cup was not great. We wasted a lot of time and effort trying to pretend T20 stars were ODI stars – Chris Lynn, Billy Stanlake, D’arcy Short. We didn’t develop a pool of all-rounder talent to take the place of Shane Watson and James Faulkner; we just shut our eyes and hoped Marcus Stoinis would come good. We weakened the domestic one-day competition and wasted time, money and energy on the Cricket Australia XI experiment, which failed to produce one ODI star.

Who are our up-and-coming one day all-rounders? Our one-day spinners? Medium pacers? Middle-order sloggers?

One person needs to be in charge of looking at these issues. An ODI specialist coach. There’s no reason why we can’t start right now.

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