ENG vs AUS | 'Dangerous' England best ODI side in the world, states Justin Langer

It is highly unlikely that you will see an Australian head coach praise an English side, that too ahead of an important series, but unlike his predecessors, in what many would find un-Australian, Justin Langer heaped praises on the hosts and also talked about the 0-5 ODI drubbing that the team received at the hands of England in 2018. Langer, ahead of Australia's limited-overs series versus England, labelled Eoin Morgan's men the 'best ODI side in the world' and recalled the drubbing the Kangaroos received two years ago, a series in which they conceded the highest ever ODI score.

“Dangerous… that’s what I made of England. I’ve watched the way Eoin Morgan plays, it’s exciting to watch, he just comes out and smacks it from ball one. They’ve been the best one-day team in the world for a few years now. We came here two years ago and got smashed 5-0,” said Langer ahead of the three-match T20I and ODI series, reported TOI.

Langer rued the fact that Australia failed to win the World Cup last year in the UK. The former Aussie Test opener said when last time the team toured England for a limited-overs series, things were really bad as Australian cricket had just come out of the infamous ball-tampering scandal that shook everyone in the cricket world.

“We came here last year, won two out of three games, just didn’t win the big one in the (World Cup) semi-final. When we came here two years ago we were at crisis point. We were copping it from everywhere and rightly so. The team had made a terrible error in judgement in South Africa. Where we’ve come in two years. I’ve talked about it over and over, we had to earn back respect internationally, we had to make Australians back home proud of us,” asserted Langer.

Australia are presently the no.1 ranked side in the ICC T20I rankings. They will take on England in the first of the three-match T20I series in Southampton on Friday. All the T20Is will be played at Southampton. It will be Australia’s first international fixture after having last played an ODI game against New Zealand, earlier this year.