Justin Langer announces beating India in their own backyard as his ‘ultimate’ goal

Justin Langer was officially announced as Darren Lehmann's successor as Australia's head coach and will take the reins of all three formats for the next four years. After the announcement, Langer revealed that he was nervous about the big tournament coming up, which includes a World Cup, a T20 World Cup, two Ashes series, but insisted that winning the series on the Indian tour would be his ‘ultimate’ goal. He stated that winning the 2004 series in India was the pinnacle of his career as a player and would look to do the same as a coach. 

"We will judge ourselves on whether we're a great cricket team if we beat India in India. I look back on my career, the Mount Everest moment was 2004 when we finally beat India in India. We've got to get better at playing overseas, we become a great team if we win overseas and at home so that will be something for us to aspire to."

"For me, I think one of the things that's really important is we keep looking to earn respect. To me, respects worth more than all the gold in the world. It’s not just about how we play our cricket, it's about being good citizens and good Australians," the 47-year-old said.

Before retiring at the end of the 2006/07 Ashes series, Langer scored more than 7,500 runs in 105 Tests, including 23 centuries. He has had a successful stint with Perth Scorchers in the T20 ‘Big Bash league’ and has won 3 titles with them since 2012, making them the most successful franchise in the league.

"The public will be disappointed if we don't play good, hard, competitive cricket," said Langer. "How people view us, that's really none of our business. We know in this world everyone's got an opinion. If we go about our behaviours on and off the field really well, those outcomes will look after themselves."

Langer said that he was surprised by the incident in the third Test played in Cape Town, but has cleared that Smith, Bancroft, and Warner would be welcomed in the side if they met the ‘standards’ of the team once their ban got over.