Justin Langer confirms batting coach Graeme Hick’s departure from Australian set up

The COVID-19 pandemic has left the world reeling. Little clarity over the future and a plummeting economy has meant there have been many redundancies across sectors, and cricket has been no different. Cricket Australia, now in a financial crisis, has had to let people go to cut costs, and the batting coach of the national team, Graeme Hick is one of the victims.

Head coach of the Australian cricket team, Justin Langer, has now spoken up on the matter and confirmed Hick’s departure. "It's been a tough few days actually, that's the truth of it. You couldn't meet a person with greater integrity than Graeme Hick. It's a really tough call. It's nothing he's done, it's more the impact of the cost-cutting that we're doing because of the COVID situation. We'll all have to adapt again hopefully; one of my strengths in the past has been able to adapt to different situations and I'll have to lead the way. That's the most important thing about leadership is that you walk the talk," said Langer.

Langer’s grit and workhorse attitude was palpable in the way he spoke about how he would go about adapting to the new environment. "In terms of high performance, that will be reduced, and we'll have to get creative. We'll work it out. We'll adapt. No one could ever criticize me for not wanting to roll my sleeves up and do some work, so whether as a player or as a coach, we'll keep rolling our sleeves up. Keep servicing and supporting the players very, very well, like we have in the past and we'll adapt to it. I'll be fine and the guys I work with will be fine," he reassured.

Langer however was quick to affirm that the players will not feel the brunt of a leaner support staff. "(It) won't be to that degree that's for sure, but we had a pretty good team even when it was like that didn't we? Now we've got to a point where we will certainly have less staff on the road with us but the guys will still get great support, whether it's remotely as we've seen over this COVID period I'm lucky having lived through the Bob Simpson-Errol Alcott reign and the Daryl Foster part-time physio reign as a state player, right to the point where we were right up until New Zealand or South Africa a few months ago (with nearly 14 members in the support staff). We'll be a bit leaner and sharper that's for sure, but we'll survive," said Langer.

Dealing with the unknown is always going to be difficult, and Langer called for more creative scheduling to deal with the unprecedented scenario. "We'll have to get creative with short tours, short white-ball tours compared to Test tours or longer tours. we'll have to get creative how we mix and match our available staff - and what our highest priorities are on tours. What I know is we'll focus on being ready for early September we'll keep living through that philosophy that we always stay ready - so we don't have to get ready and we don't panic when the time comes," he said.

The staff cut also means that there will not be a selector on tour with the team in the backroom as has been the case with the Australian team over recent years. "If you'd have asked me 12 weeks ago, I'd have thought it's nice to have a selector around or other people. For the players, it's nice to see some other selectors around at times. But 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," Langer explained.

[Cricbuzz inputs]