Australia cricket team’s current head coach Justin Langer is not satisfied with the idea of two Australian sides playing concurrently. Australia’s fixture of playing T20Is against New Zealand are going clash with a proposed Test tour to South Africa as per the FTP. Thus, Australia is likely to announce a different squad for the two tours.
But Justin Langer has made his point clear to Cricket Australia’s chairman and CEO that he is not impressed with the sight of seeing two different Australian sides playing at the same time.
“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 are complexities to it. (But) we’re one country, aren’t we? We’re not two countries and the one sport,” said Justin Langer.
Justin Langer concerned that Sheffield Shield will also be affected:
Justin Langer also showed concerned that announcing 30+ cricketers for playing the two international tours will affect the domestic tournament, Sheffield Shield. He stated that it worried him seeing the best players missing from domestic competition.
“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,” Justin Langer added.
Although he acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic had distorted all the cricketing scheduled, he is unlikely to agree with the idea of seeing two different Australian side fielded at one time.
“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.
Australian team toured England in August to play three-match ODI and T20I series. Later this year, they will play bilateral series against India at home.