IPL 2020 | Experience on Indian soil to be helpful for Aussies in 2021 WT20, reckons Justin Langer
Australia head coach Justin Langer expressed his views on their players’ Indian Premier League experience to be handy during their 2021 T20 World Cup campaign that will be held in India. A lot of Australia’s T20 specialists found their name in the sold player’s list in the auction last week.
With two T20 World Cups in the next two years, Australian players will have a lot to learn from their IPL experiences, feels coach Justin Langer. T20 WC in 2020 will be played on Australian soil with the 2021’s held in India.
In the IPL auction held last week, Pat Cummins was picked up by the Kolkata Knight Riders for a record sum of INR 15.5 Crore that made him the most expensive overseas buy in the history of the tournament. Glenn Maxwell went to Kings XI Punjab for a whopping amount of INR 10.75. Nathan Coulter-Nile (INR 8 Crore to Mumbai Indians) was another Australian who had a big price against his name.
Adding to the list of Aussie players sold in the auction, Marcus Stoinis (INR 4.8 Crore to Delhi Capitals), Aaron Finch (INR 4.4 Crore to Royal Challengers Bangalore), Kane Richardson (INR 4 Crore to RCB), Alex Carey (INR 2.4 Crore to DC), Mitchell Marsh (INR 2 Crore to Sunrisers Hyderabad), Josh Hazlewood (INR 2 Crore to Chennai Super Kings), Andrew Tye (INR 1 Crore to Rajasthan Royals) Chris Green (INR 20 Lakh to KKR), Josh Philippe (INR 20 Lakh to RCB) made it a very fruitful auction for the Aussies.
"In this cycle it's hopefully going to be really valuable to us with two T20 World Cups coming up, we've talked a lot about emphasis we are putting on T20 cricket,” expressed Langer.
The Former Aussie opener also feels that Mitchell Starc’s decision to opt-out of the hyped tournament needs to be respected with the amount of workload players bear nowadays. With IPL giving exposure to almost every player they will play in T20 WC, Langer believes this to be a "win-win" situation for them.
"Ultimately it's their decision as well, they play 12 months of the year now, you have to look at short term and long term, you certainly can't begrudge anyone being in the IPL, but from a purely big-picture point of view from us, the fact they are going to play 10-14 T20 games, where we'll play in two years, and with the World Cup [next season] that can only help their skills. Hopefully it's a win-win for everyone," aired Langer.
Meanwhile, Cummins’ attitude won’t change after receiving such hefty amount believes Langer.
"You could pay him (Cummins) a $100 million, you could pay him a $1 billion, it's not going to change him. They're the sort of people you want in your team. You could pay him a billion dollars a day and it's not going to change him. He just loves playing cricket, he's an outstanding young bloke...it's not going to affect him."