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Cricket

Langer: Australia Won't Experiment During England Series

2019 ICC Cricket World Cup - Semi-Final: England vs. Australia Australia wait on as as Umpire Dharmasena gives England's Jason Roy out for 85, caught by Australia's Alex Carey off the bowling of Pat Cummins
2019 ICC Cricket World Cup - Semi-Final: England vs. Australia Australia wait on as as Umpire Dharmasena gives England's Jason Roy out for 85, caught by Australia's Alex Carey off the bowling of Pat Cummins

Australia may have picked an experimental 21-man squad for the upcoming white-ball series against England but coach Justin Langer says they’ll be playing their best XI in each game.

The Aussies are due to fly out of Perth for the United Kingdom on Sunday ahead of the series which begins on September 4 with three T20 Internationals and three One Day Internationals.

Uncapped Big Bash League talents RIley Meredith, Daniel Sams and Josh Philippe are in the Australian touring party but Langer insisted they’d be fielding their strongest side in each match.

“We’ll still be picking our best eleven, that’s how it’s always worked well in the Australian team,” he said.

“And for some of the younger guys, if they force their way in through performance in the practice games, that would be great.

“Otherwise it will just be nice to have them around and give them a feel of what it’s like to be inducted into the Australian cricket team.

“That will be important because over the summer, more so than just this tour which will happen very quickly, we’ll need our depth.

“We’re going to want to get some eyes on them and get them into the group whenever we can, and this is a great opportunity to do that.”

Langer made the point that Australia’s 21-member touring party was so large to ensure they could play intra-squad matches in the lead-up to the first official match against England given the current limitations around the bio-secure bubble.

The Australia coach said hitting the ground running with match practice would the key for the visitors who haven’t played collectively since March, while England have had numerous Tests recently and some white-ball games against Ireland and later this month versus Pakistan.

“All my experience tells me, regardless of how good the team looks on paper, until you get a bit match hardened and start playing cricket it’s always going to be our biggest challenge,” Langer said.

“The reason we’re taking 21 is so we can play some good practice games over there. The guys have done plenty of technical work, they’re all super-fit so when we arrive in England, we get straight into match practice.”