England would be prepared to make Justin Langer the highest-paid head coach in their history following his bitter departure from the Australia job over the weekend.
The ECB board might shell out an eyebrow-raising sum of money to hire Justin Langer. Langer, who had taken over as Australia’s coach in 2018 after the Sandpaper-gate scandal in South Africa, on Saturday stepped down unhappy with CA’s decision to offer him just a six-month contract for guiding the team to its maiden ICC T20 World Cup trophy in the UAE and a 4-0 Ashes triumph at home.
The 51-year-old became a free agent on Saturday when he turned down a six-month extension to his current deal and quit with immediate effect. The ECB chief executive Tom Harrison recently has admitted the board will look for the best candidate while looking into the financial constraints “We have to make the right decisions around coaching budgets. Clearly, you are coaching England. We need the best coaches available to do that,” said Harrison.
Meanwhile, Former Australia opening batter Matthew Hayden has suggested that ECB must sign Langer, given his four-year tenure while Ponting said that this was a strange time for a coach to depart. “Sign him up. If he can turn Cricket Australia around in four years, imagine what he could do with England. God help us,” said Hayden.
Former England skipper Andrew Strauss, who took over as England’s managing director of cricket from Ashley Giles, was quoted as saying after Langer resigned from his post as Australia’s head coach that, “I know him (Langer) well and, on the surface, he’s done a very good job with that Australian cricket team so I wouldn’t rule him out (for the coaching job),” Strauss said.