Langer's bid to turn Australia into a T20 fortress

[Torrent Disney]

In a lot of ways, T20 appeared to be the best developed element of Justin Langer's coaching repertoire when he replaced Darren Lehmann some 18 months ago.

In Western Australia, he had played a large role in making the Perth Scorchers the most feared T20 team in the BBL, turning the WACA Ground "furnace" into a fortress, mastering all the defensive skills of the game, using game analytics effectively and also making shrewd use of the parallel Scorchers and Western Australia programs to keep his playing list strong.

Yet for all the dramas surrounding Australia's Test team in the wake of Newlands and then the ODI team's underperformance since winning the 2015 World Cup, it is international T20 that has long looked to be a blindspot. They have never won the T20 World Cup, nor been much more than a middling team in the scattered bilateral series.

So when Langer looks to the method for success in the format where Australia will next have an ICC global event, in October and November next year, he will be leaning heavily on his experiences with the Scorchers, allied to the trove of lessons he has taken on board at international level. To attempt to win a World Cup at home carries great expectations, but also more than a few in-built advantages for the hosts.

"As we saw with the 50-over World Cup there's obviously some home ground advantage because we're used to the conditions, we're used to the dimensions of the grounds, we'll have a good mix of players who play Big Bash at all the different venues," Langer told ESPNcricinfo. "But to win the World Cup it's like winning an AFL Grand Final, everything's got to go right at the time.

"What we can look after at the moment is how we lead up to it, guys getting their job in the team. We've shown by selecting this team, very role specific, we want them in the short term, these six games coming up, but over the next year and couple of years to become the best in the world at what their role is, whether it's bowling at the death or finishing in the middle of the innings. The non-negotiables are still our fielding, that's got to be sharp.

"But if our guys can get really great at their roles, my experience of Big Bash and T20 cricket, is if you've got specialists who do their roles really well, you'll win more games than you lose."

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