The Ashes 2019: Justin Langer’s smarter-not-harder approach key as Australia bid to keep England guessing

There is a temptation to play all of Australia’s quicks and let the cricket Gods sort it out but Langer has a different plan

There is a welcome immutability to Ashes summers, helping eclipse anything else that transpires while these contests are taking place. Take a decade ago. Then, the world’s financial system had finished teetering but most OECD nations were still in the midst of the first recessions that arrived as a result – those, in turn, the catalyst for the chaos that continues to pervade public life around the artist formerly known as the western world. But what do we remember about that summer? That’s easy. Monty and Jimmy. Freddie’s run out. Trott’s ton.

In a decade from now, will the middle months of 2019 be recalled for when President Trump and Prime Minister Johnson consummated their relationship with Prime Minister Morrison watching on armed with a bottle of baby oil? Not for those of us inside the cricket tent. We’ll participate in our familiar game of call-and-response. 2019? Yeah, that was the year Patto had a Terry Alderman of a series. Alternatively, when Jimmy and Broady walked off into the South London sunset; winners again. Or the time Smith and Warner stuck it up the world. Maybe all of the above? We should be so lucky.

Amidst all the change that has been required of Australian cricket since the last time these teams met following the mother of all ball-tampering farragoes last March, it has brought the return of one bowler who was also here ten years ago – Peter Siddle. Because of Justin Langer – the man brought in to pick up the pieces – he is back in fashion at the best possible time of the cricketing cycle, ready to play in his fourth Ashes series on English soil.

During the 2015 series, Darren Lehmann’s regime had both a set of rules and a pecking order. By the latter measure, Siddle was starting the tour as the fifth-choice seamer – elevated by one position when Ryan Harris broke down. By more problematic was the former, the Victorian out of consideration for the bulk of the tour because the former coach had no time for softies who weren’t flinging it down at better than 140kph and by then, that period of his career was over. In Siddle’s only appearance, in the dead final rubber, he took six wickets.

It was such a selection howler that it now, four years on, it is defining Langer’s strategy for Australia to salute here for the first time since 2001. For the visiting coach, the five Tests ahead aren’t about holding England up against the bike sheds and stealing their dignity, rather, it’s about beating them in the spelling bee. “We’ll pick the best three or four for every game we play,” Langer said of his smarter-not-harder approach to picking a team that can win in England. “Lord’s is very different to here, Old Trafford’s going to be different, so that’s how. We won’t rotate them per se but we’ll just pick the best three, probably not four, but three for every game. It won’t be different opposition but certainly different conditions.”

As for where Siddle fits in, Langer also points to his age – now 34 – as an advantage for adaptation in varied conditions. With experience brings savvy, he notes, pointing at Anderson’s example who turned 37 on Tuesday. Across Siddle’s years away from the national team, he has packed in plenty of cricket with the Dukes ball, too. “He’s got good endurance, a very fit athlete,” the coach said. “It’s great to have him as part of the squad. If he plays on Thursday, with the overhead conditions, he’ll be a real handful. Or we hope.”

The alternative approach and understandable temptation is to play all of Australia’s genuine quick bowlers and let the cricket Gods sort it out. Certainly, the fact that James Pattinson for the first time ever is fit and available alongside Pat Cummins – the world’s No 1 ranked bowler – Mitch Starc and Josh Hazlewood is a persuasive combination.

But Langer doesn’t see it that way. Instead, he saw with his own eyes last summer when India were victorious in a Test series in Australia for the first time ever the benefits of keeping a home side guessing with which seamers would play match to match and expectations have been managed accordingly. In this decidedly more egalitarian approach, it is likely that performances of Siddle will be just as important as Starc or Cummins to their overall success.

That Pattinson has been confirmed by Langer as starting at Edgbaston alongside Cummins – Starc, Siddle and Hazlewood playing “for one spot” at Birmingham, he has declared – reflects the 29-year-old’s success in this country over several stints with Dukes balls. Sure, he hasn’t worn his baggy green since January 2016 and yes, since then he needed vertebrae fused together in a last-ditch effort to give him a chance at a lengthy career, but he’s simply too good to deny. “It’s a great story,” Langer said of the Victoria and Nottinghamshire tearaway who this time last year was no guarantee of returning to playing multi-day cricket.

Langer is hoping to keep England guessing (PA)

At the top of the list, an equally impressive story, according to Langer, is the return of Cameron Bancroft. The sullied opener brought his baggy green with him to Durham at the start of this season and has made enough runs there to leapfrog incumbent openers Marcus Harris and Joe Burns to partner the man who got him into all that trouble – Warner. A reflective Bancroft has said that he wasn’t as true to himself as he could have been before the crisis caused him to re-evaluate how out of perspective cricket had become for him. That’s the sort of commentary that sings to a character like Langer. “His development over the last 12 months. After what happened has been extraordinary, we’re that proud of him.”

The response he will receive when walking out with Warner, then Smith at number three, Langer is sure, will be even nastier than it was during the World Cup. “There’s nothing we can do about that,” he said. “We’ve been to lots of Ashes series and they’re all the same. England are the same when they come to Australia. It’s tough. That’s just the environment we’re in. There’s a lot of attention on Davey and Steve. I don’t think it’s redemption. They want to beat England and England want to beat us. That’s why the Ashes is so great, isn’t it?”