Australia coach Justin Langer assures that players won’t be short on service despite staff cut

Australia's batting coach Graeme Hick was removed from his position as a cost-cutting measure.

Cricket Australia announced a major cut in the staff of the Australian cricket team and coach Justin Langer had to assure that the players won’t be short on service despite the cost-cutting measures.

Australia’s long-time batting coach Graeme Hick was removed from Langer’s coaching staff on Wednesday and was one of 40 redundancies across Cricket Australia as part of the organization’s response to deal with the severe financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“No one could ever criticize me for not wanting to roll my sleeves up and do some work. We will certainly have less staff on the road with us, but the guys will still get great support,” Langer was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.

“Whether it’s remotely; as we’ve seen over this COVID period, there’s a lot of support that can be given and serviced remotely. We’ll all survive. We’ll be a bit leaner and sharper, that’s for sure, but we’ll survive, we’ll adapt, and the players will still get the service required,” he added.

Langer said telling Hick of his removal “was like facing Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh without a helmet and a box on”.

“He’s a ripping human being, there’s no doubt about that. You won’t meet a person of greater integrity than Graeme Hick. His worth ethic is unbelievable, his knowledge of the game is unbelievable, so it was a really tough call,” Langer said.

However, the possible presence of Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh for major series, as hinted by Langer himself may help the players. “The more good people that we can have around the team, the better. We’re just going to have to be more creative and we’re going to have to work through solutions for how we can make that happen,” the head coach said.

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The national men’s team has traditionally had a selector on duty for overseas tours and that role has also been cut from the touring party.

“For the players, it’s nice to see some other selectors around at times. But look the way that these technology platforms (have helped). I’m sure there’s going to be scope for using a lot more of this technology to make these decisions, to talk to the captain, to talk to the senior players and that’ll be a part of it,” he added.

(PTI inputs)