All too aware of a desire within the dressing room he leaves, and offered only a short-term contract extension by a board that had put the pro in procrastination, Justin Langer quit as head coach of Australia on Saturday. The question now, after a week of bloodletting in English cricket, is whether one of the Baggy Green’s most devout acolytes will cross the Ashes divide.
And it will be asked. Andrew Strauss, England’s interim director of men’s cricket after Ashley Giles, Chris Silverwood and Graham Thorpe were sacked, is usually cautious when discussing recruitment. But at Lord’s on Friday he happily engaged with the subject of Langer’s candidacy, 24 hours before the decoupling from Cricket Australia was sealed, saying: “He will be one of the names [in the frame].”
