Justin Langer has ruled himself out of contention for the India head coach role following his return to professional coaching with LSG in the 2024 IPL, revealing a conversation with KL Rahul on the politics involved with the role.
Subscribe to the Wisden Cricket YouTube channel for post-match analysis, player interviews, and much more.
Langer took a two-and-a-half year break from coaching following his acrimonious departure from his head coach role with the Australia men’s team. The former opener was appointed as Australia head coach in 2018 following the ball-tampering controversy. He left the role in 2022 after a reported rift with players over his leadership style, despite overseeing a winning T20 World Cup campaign and Ashes retention.
However, he was appointed head coach of LSG for the 2024 IPL season, in which the franchise finished seventh in the league table in a four-way tie for the final qualifying position for the knockout stage. They missed out on advancing on net run-rate. Following his return to professional coaching, Langer has ruled out a return to international coaching in the immediate future, with rumours swirling over who will take on the India men’s head coach role following Rahul Dravid’s departure after the T20 World Cup.
“It would be an amazing job,” said Langer, speaking to BBC Stumped podcast. “But I also know that it’s an all encompassing role. Having done it for four years with the Australian team, honestly it’s exhausting. And that’s the Australian job.
“I’m not ready to leap back into an international role… You never say never. And the pressure of doing it in India. I was talking to KL Rahul [the captain at Lucknow Super Giants, where Langer is the head coach] and he said, ‘You know, if you think there’s pressure and politics in an IPL team, multiply that by a thousand, [that’s] coaching India. That was a good bit of advice, I guess.
“It would be an awesome job, but not for me at the moment.”
Langer also revealed how missing out on T20 World Cup selection affected Rahul. Rahul was left out in favour of wicketkeepers Sanju Samson and Rishabh Pant.
“When that World Cup selection came about, there seemed to be a shift in how we played for those few games and I think there’s different ways of looking at it,” said Langer. “Obviously KL and Ravi Bishnoi missed out on selection, there just seemed to be a shift in performance. Whether it had anything to do with it, I don’t know, but there seemed to be that timeline of a change in our fortunes… KL was disappointed but he’s incredibly professional. He’s an outstanding human being and he’s a very very good player. I’m sure internally very disappointed but you’d never have known with the way he carried himself.”
Earlier this week, Ricky Ponting also revealed he had been approached for the possibility of taking up the India coach job, but had turned the opportunity down. The former Australia batter explained that it “doesn’t fit into [his] lifestyle right now’.
