{"id":807683,"date":"2026-07-18T06:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T06:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/807683\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T06:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T06:24:10","slug":"cricket-news-2026-justin-langer-england-coach-frontrunner-andy-flower-withdraws-comments-reaction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/807683\/","title":{"rendered":"Cricket news 2026: Justin Langer England coach frontrunner, Andy Flower withdraws, comments, reaction"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Australian<\/a> opener Justin Langer<\/a> is firming as favourite to replace Brendon McCullum<\/a> as England<\/a>\u2019s Test<\/a> coach.<\/p>\n

Langer\u2019s name shot to the top of the list following confirmation former Zimbabwe captain Andy Flower, who held the England role between 2009-2014 and had been favourite for a second stint in the job, had ruled himself out of the running.<\/p>\n

\"Justin<\/p>\n

Former Australian Test opener Justin Langer is favourite to become the next England coach.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

Langer had only just been pushed out of the Australian coaching job<\/a> when the England gig was last available in 2022. He scoffed at reports he was in the running<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never spoken to English cricket,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cThe thought of coaching England \u2026 mate!\u201d<\/p>\n

Langer scored 1658 runs at 50.24 from 21 Ashes<\/a> Tests. He scored five hundreds with a best of 250 on Boxing Day in 2002.<\/p>\n

McCullum was sacked from the Test job earlier this month<\/a>, but remains coach of the ODI team. <\/p>\n

Flower declined the job because he didn\u2019t want to dilute his existing commitments to two white-ball franchises. He coaches the London Spirit in The Hundred in England and the Royal Challengers Bangaluru<\/a> in the IPL<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Putting aside the optics of an Australian coaching the Ashes foe, Langer would have to face the same dilemma before he could take the role. He took over from Flower as coach of the Lucknow Super Giants in 2023, and also coaches the Super Giants\u2019 Manchester franchise in The Hundred.<\/p>\n

The ECB had earlier said they would be open to allowing its Test coach to also hold a franchise position, but Flower did not believe it would be possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me personally, I don\u2019t think I could have done both, especially with the IPL being held during the first couple of months of the English summer,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I was England Test coach, I\u2019d like to be here watching and interacting with the people I needed to watch and interact with, so for me, that wasn\u2019t a possibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

In The Telegraph (UK), cricket writer Nick Hoult declared a Langer-led England \u201cunimaginable\u201d in theory, but his \u201crigour and exacting standards\u201d could be what the side needed.<\/p>\n

And for Langer personally, leading England to an Ashes victory would be \u201crevenge\u201d on Cricket Australia<\/a> for forcing him out of a job he did not want to leave.<\/p>\n

\"Justin<\/p>\n

Langer coaches the London Spirit in The Hundred in England.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough Langer was sometimes seen as too intense with Australia, these qualities could be better served helping a team at England\u2019s stage of their development; he might even have softened a little, too,\u201d Hoult wrote.<\/p>\n

Former New Zealand<\/a> quick Stephen Fleming is also reportedly among the other frontrunners. The 53-year-old told the New Zealand Herald he had not been approached by the ECB, by was \u201cquite humbled\u201d to be linked to the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d 100 per cent give it some consideration, just out of respect. If another country thought you could add some value, it\u2019s quite a compliment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Retired Sri Lanka<\/a> keeper-batter Kumar Sangakkara and India<\/a> legend Rahul Dravid are also leading candidates.<\/p>\n

The only Englishman in the discussion currently is Richard Dawson, who has previously held assistant roles within England\u2019s white-ball set up. He has never been a head coach of an international team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Australian opener Justin Langer is firming as favourite to replace Brendon McCullum as England\u2019s Test coach. Langer\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":807684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-807683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/807684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}