Justin Langer, Who Will Work With Gautam Gambhir At LSG, Had Once Turned Down His KKR Head Coach Offer

Lucknow Super Giants have appointed former Australia batter and head coach Justin Langer as their head coach for the 17th season of Indian Premier League next year. The decision has meant that he will replace former Zimbabwe batter and former England head coach Andy Flower from the post, who had worked in this very capacity since the franchise made its IPL debut in 2022.

“Lucknow Super Giants have appointed legendary former Australian cricket team coach and batsman Justin Langer as their team head coach. As the two-year contract of Andy Flower comes to an end, Lucknow Super Giants thanks Andy Flower for his contribution,” LSG’s statement read.

Most recently, Flower had joined the Australian men’s side in a consultancy role ahead of the recently concluded ICC World Test Championship final against India at The Oval.

As for Langer, the 52-year-old was appointed as Australian men’s team head coach in the year 2018. He had resigned after Australia had won The Ashes 2021-22 at home, denying the short-term contract offer extension by CA.

Justin Langer Will Work With Gautam Gambhir In IPL 2024

The above mentioned development has also meant that Langer will work alongside LSG’s global mentor for cricketing operations Gautam Gambhir during IPL 2024. Interestingly, the two have been quite well-versed with each other since the year 2015.

Gambhir had began training under the supervision of Langer in June 2015 with a hope to work on the overall development of his game. His decision had arrived a year after he was dropped from the Indian Test side, and having already been out of contention for a selection in the national team’s white ball side as well since 2012.

In what was a commendable decision taken by the then 33-year-old left-handed batter, Gambhir had met Langer during the latter’s arrival in India as the head coach of Perth Scorchers in the now-defunct Champions League T20 in 2014.

“I met JL [Justin Langer] during the last Champions League last year when he was touring with Perth Scorchers as their coach. We spoke about a few things, about my batting, and I realised that he could be my go-to man to work on my game,” Gambhir remarked in 2015 during an interaction with Hindustan Times.

Gambhir had landed in Perth for the training in the month of June, where he would also include gymnastics and martial arts in the complete schedule.

Gautam Gambhir Had Offered Justin Langer To Join KKR In 2015

In mere 20 days of his training period, Gambhir was so impressed with Langer’s overall approach towards understanding his game, that he was convinced in his head that he should be the head coach of Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League. This, despite Gambhir having already skippered KKR to their second IPL title just the previous year, under then-head coach Trevor Bayliss.

However, Langer had politely refused to accept Gambhir’s offer on behalf of the KKR management, as he wanted to take care of his ailing mother who was battling against cancer at the time.

Justin Langer Coaching Career

Despite having not coached an IPL team before, Langer is right up there in terms of experience with champion T20 sides. He was appointed as the head coach of Western Australia and Scorchers in November 2012 and led the latter to as many as three Big Bash League titles during 2013-14, 2014-15, and 2016-17 editions of the league.

He was also the head coach of the Australian team which lifted their maiden T20 World Cup title in 2021 in the United Arab Emirates. Also, during his tenure, Australia had defeated England 4-0 during a home Ashes series.

Gautam Gambhir To Not Join KKR In IPL 2024

As per a Dainik Jagran report from a couple of days ago, Gambhir was in talks with his former IPL team Knight Riders perhaps to join the franchise as their new head coach. This, after Chandrakant Pandit had replaced Brendon McCullum as their head coach the previous year before IPL 2023.

While a seven-year association with KKR does have an emotional side to it, but the chances of him going back to the franchise in some capacity are slim now. Apart from getting to work with Langer again, another reason being that he was alleviated to the post of LSG’s global mentor for its cricketing operations in October 2022.