Australia players won't be impacted despite staff lay-off: Langer

Justin Langer said that the coaching staff is ready to put in extra work to help the players after batting coach Graeme Hick was let go by the Board.

Australia head coach Justin Langer revealed that telling batting coach Graeme Hick of his removal was difficult.

Australia head coach Justin Langer on Thursday asserted his players would not be impacted adversely due to the leaner support staff at their disposal following the cost-cutting measures taken by the country’s cricket board.

Australia’s long-time batting coach Graeme Hick was removed from Langer’s coaching staff on Wednesday.

Hick was one of 40 redundancies across Cricket Australia as part of the organisation’s response to deal with the severe financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“No one could ever criticise 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.”

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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 work ethic is unbelievable, his knowledge of the game is unbelievable, so it was a really tough call.”

But Langer hinted that high-profile mentors such as Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh may still be involved for major series.

“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 touring team won’t have a selector now onwards. The national men’s team has traditionally had a selector on duty for overseas tours and Langer said the technology should help in filling the void.

“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.