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Justin Langer announces Graeme Hick’s departure; casts doubt over Zimbabwe series | Justin Langer seeks to reboot in September

Justin Langer, Australia’s head coach, announced the departure of batting Graeme Hick, as part of Cricket Australia’s cost cutting measures amid the financial struggles due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“It’s been a tough few days actually, that’s the truth of it. You couldn’t meet a person with greater integrity than Graeme Hick. It’s a really tough call. It’s nothing he’s done, it’s more the impact of the cost cutting that we’re doing because of the COVID situation. We’ll all have to adapt and again hopefully one of my strengths in the past has been able to adapt to different situations and I’ll have to lead the way. That’s the most important thing about leadership is that you walk the talk,” said Langer.

The exit of Hick will leave a huge void in the Aussie dressing room as the Englishman had been a vital cog in Langer’s coaching setup. His tireless personality in the nets, such as giving throwdowns to middle order mainstays like Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, will be missed.

“In terms of high performance, that will be reduced, and we’ll have to get creative. We’ll work it out. We’ll adapt. No one could ever criticise me for not wanting to roll my sleeves up and do some work, so whether as a player or as a coach, we’ll keep rolling our sleeves up. Keep servicing and supporting the players very, very well, like we have in the past and we’ll adapt to it. I’ll be fine and the guys I work with will be fine,” the former opening batsman added.

He emphasized that there would be no reduction in the support to the players representing Australia.

“(It) won’t be to that degree that’s for sure, but we had a pretty good team even when it was like that didn’t we? Now we’ve got to a point where we will certainly have less staff on the road with us but the guys will still get great support, whether it’s remotely as we’ve seen over this COVID period I’m lucky having lived through the Bob Simpson-Errol Alcott reign and the Daryl Foster part time physio reign as a state player, right to the point where we were right up until New Zealand or South Africa a few months ago (with nearly 14 members in the support staff). We’ll be a bit leaner and sharper that’s for sure, but we’ll survive,” said Langer

Doubts over Zimbabwe ODI series in August

The head coach, however, has his doubts over the series against Zimbabwe in August.

“We’ll have to get creative with short tours, short white-ball tours compared to Test tours or longer tours. We’ll have to get creative how we mix and match our available staff – and what our highest priorities are on tours. What I know is we’ll focus on being ready for early September we’ll keep living through that philosophy that we always stay ready – so we don’t have to get ready and we don’t panic when the time comes,” he said.

Also read: Zimbabwe tour of Australia scheduled in Northern Australia in August 2020

Cricket Australia has also decided to discontinue the ‘A’ tours. Also, responsibility to prepare the domestic players for the International level will again be delegated to state sides

However, Langer looks at the situation positively.

“I’ve been hearing for a long time: from club cricket, we need to be doing more for club cricket. And from state cricket-land, which I was part of for a long time. Here’s the opportunity right now. In a way, we’re going back to the past a little bit. All the state teams run such professional set-ups – they have the opportunity to service the guys in state-land. The fact all our guys are back training with the states at the moment, that’s a real positive,” he said.

He also added that the team will rise to occasion of playing a big series in spite of playing it behind closed doors. “We’ll all love to be playing in front of full crowds, even when it gets Virat (Kohli) going. Actually, last time we played India, there was big parts of the crowd who were following India. So, that adds to the atmosphere and the entertainment. Will that change how the game is played? Time will tell. When we were little kids, we didn’t play in front of 50,000 people. We’d have our mum and dad in the crowd and maybe our brother and sister watching. And they were probably off on the swings because they were bored about watching their big brother play sport. But mum and dad would be pretty pumped so, we’ll play for the love and that’s one thing that will come out of it. The silver lining. We all love the game of cricket and one of the luxuries and one of the privileges is you play in front of a big crowd,” he said.

Written by Sarthak Karkhanis. Follow Sarthak on Twitter today.

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