New Australian coach Justin Langer

[Hamingja]

Players that averaged over 40 in the shield last season and over 40 again so far this year:

Harris
Burns
Wade
Hughes
Maxwell
White
Pucovski (albeit from like 3 games across both years)

Now who has been Australia's best batsman over the summer.

 

[STFU Donnie]

Interesting that Lawson is suggesting Langers record as coach is questionable.

Interesting that only Lawson is suggesting Langers record as coach is questionable.

 

[STFU Donnie]

I wonder if Gough has reconsidered the very first line in this thread?

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Interesting that Lawson is suggesting Langers record as coach is questionable.

Because it is.
T20 titles are largely irrelevant.

Didn’t win a shield title.
Didn’t produce any quality cricketers to the test side.

 

[wolmeister]

Because it is.
T20 titles are largely irrelevant.

Didn’t win a shield title.
Didn’t produce any quality cricketers to the test side.

Victoria has produced how many quality test cricketers over the last 10 years? You would expect numerous Victorians in the test side given they've won 5 of the last 10 Shields. Quiney's 9 was of the highest quality though.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Victoria has produced how many quality test cricketers over the last 10 years? You would expect numerous Victorians in the test side given they've won 5 of the last 10 Shields. Quiney's 9 was of the highest quality though.

True Victoria has had a checkered history in that regard. I’d consider Peter Siddle a success. Marcus Harris has made a good start.

Facts are that Langer achieved no meaningful state success and has given the national team nothing but two spud Marsh brothers. It’s right he’s being questioned, he must merely be there as a yes man for men higher up

 

[Gough]

I wonder if Gough has reconsidered the very first line in this thread?

He is a safe pair of hands, not likely to rock the boat, PR friendly, whether with hindsight he's what we need right now is another question. There weren't exactly a s**t load of people putting their hand up for the job at the time either.

 

[Messenger]

Victoria has produced how many quality test cricketers over the last 10 years? You would expect numerous Victorians in the test side given they've won 5 of the last 10 Shields. Quiney's 9 was of the highest quality though.

We can't talk about Langer without discussing the Victorian Shield team?

 

[StillAtLarge]

Not a single University of New South Wales reference? Scandalous!

 

[STFU Donnie]

He is a safe pair of hands, not likely to rock the boat, PR friendly, whether with hindsight he's what we need right now is another question. There weren't exactly a s**t load of people putting their hand up for the job at the time either.

So a "safe pair of hands" from a CA perspective, rather than from a cricketing excellence perspective? Personally, I find the two to be increasingly mutually exclusive.

 

[StillAtLarge]

Interesting that only Lawson is suggesting Langers record as coach is questionable.

That's because Langer has always been 'one of the boys'

 

[SunshineBoy]

Victoria has produced how many quality test cricketers over the last 10 years? You would expect numerous Victorians in the test side given they've won 5 of the last 10 Shields. Quiney's 9 was of the highest quality though.

Chip on shoulder on this one is a tree

 

[wolmeister]

We can't talk about Langer without discussing the Victorian Shield team?

Makes sense to ask the question doesn't it? Apparently, success with Shield wins along with developing quality test cricketers is a criteria to coach Australia. Victoria has been by far and away the most successful Shield side of the last 10 years. Where are all the test players that have been developed? Should we rush Andrew McDonald in to coach the Australian team?

 

[bluespooner]

I'm not surprised Lawson was sacked by Pakistan after 15 months into the job. If he can't see that this Australian team is immeasurably improved by having someone like Labuschagne batting, with the best technique in the Australian top 6, then he doesn't know how to pick teams with the prospect of being developing to win games.

For crying out loud, wanting to go back to 30 year old blokes with techniques about swiping across the line through mid-wicket, because they might have fluked a few more runs than Labuschagne, says everything about Lawson.

 

[Docker82]

The issue I had with the appointment was that almost all his success was with a Scorchers side which was very good on paper compared to the rest of the competition they played up until last season. The squad was built on retaining the WA - an advantage only really the Strikers and Heat possibly could’ve had (as the Tasmanian state side is a lot NSW expats anyway).

The WA side was still reasonably strong and he has one trophy to show for it. I wanted Gillespie as he’s done it in England where there happens to be a World Cup and Ashes next year.

Off topic slightly but Mitch Marsh is everything that is wrong with Australian cricket. Every time he’s moved up a level the people can’t help but want to move him up to the next one. It’s a strange obsession given he’s barely a better batsmen than most no. 8s (admittedly he’s much better in coloured clothing) and his bowling resembles a 130km/hr bowling machine (ie accurate but not troubling an decent batsman). Statically his batting average would barely be the top six for WA and his bowling is barely needed yet he’s captain. The bloke has been handed everything on a silver platter his whole life and has never improved because of it. It stinks.

 

[wolmeister]

Chip on shoulder on this one is a tree

Personally I don't care who coaches the test side, or makes the test side for that matter, as long as they perform. However, Langer's only had 7 tests in charge and I am prepared to give him more time than that.

 

[bluespooner]

We can't talk about Langer without discussing the Victorian Shield team?

Well someone was talking about Langer's record as the Western Australia coach by a typical whinging Victorian poster; so yes it was relevant.

 

[Tugga27]

Yep, because Lawson has such a great coaching record himself

Even his Aussie team mates thought he was a flog.

 

[wolmeister]

True Victoria has had a checkered history in that regard. I’d consider Peter Siddle a success. Marcus Harris has made a good start.

Facts are that Langer achieved no meaningful state success and has given the national team nothing but two spud Marsh brothers. It’s right he’s being questioned, he must merely be there as a yes man for men higher up

Langer giving the national team the Marsh brothers is not a fact; they were already in WA team prior to his stint as WA coach and were in the Australian side prior to his tenure as Australian coach.

 

[wolmeister]

The issue I had with the appointment was that almost all his success was with a Scorchers side which was very good on paper compared to the rest of the competition they played up until last season. The squad was built on retaining the WA - an advantage only really the Strikers and Heat possibly could’ve had (as the Tasmanian state side is a lot NSW expats anyway).

The WA side was still reasonably strong and he has one trophy to show for it. I wanted Gillespie as he’s done it in England where there happens to be a World Cup and Ashes next year.

Off topic slightly but Mitch Marsh is everything that is wrong with Australian cricket. Every time he’s moved up a level the people can’t help but want to move him up to the next one. It’s a strange obsession given he’s barely a better batsmen than most no. 8s (admittedly he’s much better in coloured clothing) and his bowling resembles a 130km/hr bowling machine (ie accurate but not troubling an decent batsman). Statically his batting average would barely be the top six for WA and his bowling is barely needed yet he’s captain. The bloke has been handed everything on a silver platter his whole life and has never improved because of it. It stinks.

The only issue is Gillespie didn't want the job. Just a slight spanner in the works.

Mitch Marsh has always been selected on potential and never been left to develop. He really needed a couple of solid seasons of Shield cricket.

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Langer giving the national team the Marsh brothers is not a fact; they were already in WA team prior to his stint as WA coach and were in the Australian side prior to his tenure as Australian coach.

You stick up for your boy. It's cute.

 

[Scotland]

The Scorchers are only good on paper now that people recognise that guys like Tye, Turner etc. are good players.

Ian Bell, Paul Collingwood, Yasir Arafat, Alfonso Thomas, David Willey, Tim Bresnan, Michael Carberry... hardly a list of high priced T20 superstars. Hogg in his 40s out of retirement, Johnson at 36/37, Klinger after being discarded by Vic and SA.

 

[The Swans Blog]

Really am coming around to the brown nose gnome name.

 

[Scotland]

Welcome to 1998.

 

[PT Bar None]

Think Langer is getting a bit of a rough deal here. Maybe you know better than I though. I know little about the man other than what he did with bat in hand years ago. He's what, 6 tests into his national coaching career? In that time he's picked Mitch Marsh 3 times, or to look at it another way, only 50% of the time he was available. Some other beggars picked him for those other 28 or so Tests.

For me he's a bit like Stewie Dew. He's come into a shitshow with talent problems and off field problems (psychological and administrative). Maybe he's a good coach and maybe he isn't. I can't tell yet.

And as The Speaker says above speculation has been part of Australian Test Selection for a long time. Whether it be the next Warne, the next Hayden, the next Gilchrist, a Flintoff, etc. And selection at its core is subjective. There are always selections people strongly disagree with for whatever reason. And when this subjectivity is accompanied by poor performance it adds fuel to the fire. But even back in the glory days you didn't have to look too far to find a bore declaring at length how Love was a better pure batsman than half the current Test top 6, or that MacGill was a better bowler than Warne or that if Jones was gifted the same number of chances as Steve Waugh he'd be Australia's best batsman. All subjective, and as time transpires, irrelevant.

Spending a lot of time in these forums there seems to be a general consensus that we should "just pick the best side", yet there is no similar consensus about what that best side actually is. Plenty of suggestions, followed by plenty of "Ugh, no"'s. What defines "best"? Statistics, form, technique, potential, experience, incumbency, balance and psychology all play a part. We all weight those differently and don't have all the data anyway.

And similarly to Mitch Marsh, Langer applied for a job and was offered it. You can't blame him for accepting it or not insisting that CA perform a more rigorous appointment process. I'm massively frustrated by the ability of our batsman to make a dumb decision at seemingly a moments notice, but maybe this ship is going to take longer than 6 tests to turn around. In business where you've had an immature or poorly controlled s**t show, it often gets worse before it gets better. That might be the case here too. My accusatory gaze is more drawn to a distrust of the administrative governance rather than the new coach, probably due to my business and sports administration experience. I've found that when you have a paucity of transparency or confusion based upon implied instruction, it's because someone at the top likes things exactly that way.

Aussie cricket is in a hole for sure. Might be there for a while too. But I don't yet know which character Langer is.