Australia head coach Justin Langer has on Tuesday (March 9) admitted frustration over losing valuable points due to a slow over-rate against India in the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground that cost them a place in the final of the inaugural ICC World Test Championship.
Tim Paine-led Australian side was fined four World Test Championship points after they fell two overs short of the required rate of 15 overs per hour in the second Test of the four-match Test series in Melbourne against India earlier this year.
The loss of 4 points meant that New Zealand finished 0.3 percent ahead of Australia and after they pulled out of South Africa Test tour, the Kiwis qualified for the ICC World Test Championship final and now India secured the second spot after beating England 3-1 in a home Test series last week.
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Australia finished third (69.2 %) behind India (72 %) and New Zealand (70 %) – the two sides will now face each other in the ICC World Test Championship final on June 18-22, 2021.
Following the elimination from World Test Championship, Langer said it was really disappointing but Australia was “really slack” in not maintaining their over-rate in the Melbourne Test against India.
He also claimed that the Australian team had no idea that they were behind the required over rate until the Boxing Day Test concluded as their team manager Gavin Dovey was on a Christmas leave and even he also predicted the repercussions which turned into a reality a few weeks later.
Langer told SEN, “This might be the silliest thing I’ve ever said, but our manager Gavin Dovey … he’d been away, he’d gone home for Christmas to be with his family. It wasn’t until after the game that we realized our over rate was down. Now, that’s really slack on our behalf.”
He continued, “I remember we were in the team room afterwards and I spoke to Painey (skipper Tim Paine) and Dene Hills, our analyst, about it. I was a bit grumpy about it and I thought ‘imagine if this cost us the World Test Championship’. And I mentioned it to the players afterwards that two overs down could cost us the World Test Championship.
And so, we have to get better at that and make sure it doesn’t happen in Sydney and Brisbane. It was relevant at the time and it certainly became incredibly significant over the weekend. It’s very disappointing, but the lesson is the things that we can control, we have to control. And we can’t relax for a second in Test cricket.”
With India hosting the forthcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2021 later this year, Langer said Australia’s IPL-bound players’ performances in the IPL 2021 will be taken into consideration for the selection.
He signed off by saying, “There’s no better showcase for some of our players. They’re playing in the same conditions (as the World Cup). We’ll watch that really closely and see who performs well. It’s a great opportunity for a lot of players. They get to play a lot of cricket under pressure, that can only benefit them individually and us collectively.”
(With PTI Inputs)
