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Ashes, T20s to silence Langer talk: Bailey

3 minute read

George Bailey has backed the culture Justin Langer has created in Australian cricket, throwing support behind the coach amid questions over his future.

GEORGE BAILEY.
GEORGE BAILEY. Picture: Paul Kane/Getty Images

New chairman of selectors George Bailey has thrown his support behind Justin Langer, backing a strong World Cup and Ashes series to kill off questions about the national coach's future.

Scrutiny over Langer's job security prompted Cricket Australia chief executive Nick Hockley to leap to his defence on Wednesday, claiming he was doing an "incredible job".

It came as questions were raised about Langer's intense nature and the way he deals with players after two horror trips on the road to West Indies and Bangladesh.

An understrength Australian team lost T20 series to both countries, after also dropping a Test series at home while close to full strength.

It comes ahead of a massive three months for Langer's side, where they are aiming for their first T20 World Cup success with a home Ashes to follow.

But just as Langer did throughout his playing career, Bailey has backed him to keep on fighting.

"Let's not put this all on on Justin," Bailey said.

"As a group over the last 12 months I don't think we've quite played the best cricket or as certainly as good as I think we potentially could have.

"JL took over at a pretty challenging period of time, and since then there's been a lot a lot of permutations and change happen in the group.

"The focus for us is purely down on the World Cup and the Ashes, if we perform well in those tournaments these things tend to tend to die away a little bit."

Asked if Langer had lost the dressing room, Bailey responded: "I don't think so

"Regardless of everything that has been written, the amount of respect the JL has for both what he's done and what he continuing to try and deal with cricket in general but with this team is huge.

"There's no doubt I think there's been a few challenges over the last 12 months.

"I don't think this is unique to JL, I think most industries, certainly in high performance sporting organisations."

Those challenges are set to continue for Australia over the next four months.

Players were let out of quarantine on day eight only to train in Adelaide on Thursday for the first time, but face further issues on that front.

The one-off Test against Afghanistan in Hobart is scheduled for 13 days after the T20 World Cup final, meaning players could need an exemption to play if they reach the end of the white-ball tournament.

There are also concerns the Test could be affected by the current political issues in Afghanistan.

Either situation could leave multi-formatted players such as David Warner, Steve Smith, Josh Hazelwood, Mitchell Starc, David Warner and Pat Cummins with no red-ball cricket before the Ashes.

Australia must also tread carefully with Smith's elbow injury, at this stage backing him to play in the T20 World Cup before the Ashes,

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