Last Updated on 5 years by Charbel Coorey
Justin Langer not a fan at all of split squads | Australia coach Justin Langer expresses his disapproval at two Aussie teams playing at the same time
Australian head coach Justin Langer made it quite clear that he doesn’t approve of having two sets of teams for one sport at the same time. Australia recently announced that a T20I series will take place in New Zealand from February 22 to March 7, at the same time as a Test series in South Africa, which is proposed by ICC for their Future Tour Programme.
As a result, Cricket Australia chairman Earl Eddings and interim CEO Nick Hockley proposed having two different sets of teams playing at the same time in different parts of the world.
“The chairman knows this, the CEO knows this really clearly – my personal opinion is I don’t like it at all,” Langer told SEN. “Not just from a coach’s point of view but also from someone who’s passionate about Australian cricket’s point of view, my personal opinion, and the chairman knows this, the CEO knows this really clearly, is I didn’t like it at all. I don’t ever want to have two Australian teams in one place, that’s my personal opinion. In this year with what’s happening with Covid, I understand there’s complexities to it. (But) we’re one country, aren’t we? We’re not two countries, and the one sport,” said Langer.
It will be the first time though that Australia would be playing with two different squads for two different formats at the same time. The coach was also concerded about the affect it will have on the Sheffield Shield season. “If you have two Australian cricket teams in this current COVID period … let’s say we’ve got to take 18 players to New Zealand, we’ve got to take 18 players to South Africa, that’s 36 players out of the backend of the Sheffield Shield competition,” he said. “So you’re taking all your best players out of the back half of the Shield competition, which we’ve always said is the best domestic competition in the world. They’re the sort of things that worry me with this. But this is a really strange season; we’re seeing it with AFL, we’re seeing it with NRL, but I certainly would never like to see it be a permanent fixture,” Langer said.
Written by Anjali Jha. Follow Anjali on Twitter today.
