Justin Langer has been making headlines across the course of the past week after departing his post as the head coach of the Australian XI, a position he had held since 2018.
While his coaching style and methods have been debated, ad nauseam, by past and present players, the success of his playing career was significantly less controversial.
Langer turned himself from a domestic talent for Western Australia into one of Australia’s greatest ever top-order batters. With opening partner Matthew Hayden, they created Australia’s most prolific opening line-up, ranking as number two for total runs by averaging a partnership of 51.41 for a total of 5655 runs.
Individually, the punchy opener played in 105 tests and eight one-day internationals throughout his career and finished with 23 centuries at an average of 45.27.
For an Australian player, Langer, currently, has the 29th highest batting average, is eighth highest in total runs and batted in the seventh most innings. His high score of 250 ranks equals 12th amongst Australian players.
In the wake of his departure as the nation's steward, we took a look at five of Justin Langer’s career-best moments with the bat in hand.
4. Langer and Ponting put on historic partnership - Pakistan 1999
Over the course of Langer’s career, he proved to be an elite international batsman. With an average of 45.27, he showed the class to be able to pile on runs no matter who he was facing.
One of the teams that Langer found the most success in playing against was Pakistan. His average of 56.95 when playing the side from the subcontinent was his second-highest. Performances like this in 1999 are examples of the high-level batting he displayed against the Pakistani bowlers.
After bowling Pakistan out for 155, it appeared Australia was in a commanding position, with McGrath, Fleming and Kasprowicz taking three, three and four wickets respectively.
Australia wasn’t able to capitalise on that initial domination, however, suffering a few cheap wickets early. When Ponting came into the crease at number six, Australia was in trouble. They were 4-54 and struggling to take hold of the game.
The pitch was looking good for the bowlers, with 14 wickets taken for only 210 runs.
Ponting and Langer, however, were able to turn it around putting on a masterclass batting display. The pair put on a massive 327 run partnership that was the 4th highest tally at the time. To date, it is still the 9th highest 5th wicket partnership.
Langer managed 144 runs to steady the team after those early wickets. Batting for 437 minutes and 286 balls, he slowed the game down and put the momentum back in the Aussie’s favour. His control and composure allowed Ponting to smash 197, just falling short of the double century.
The partnership also nearly equated for three-quarters of the teams’ total runs. Adam Gilchrist (28) was the only other Australian to score more than 15 runs in the innings.
The innings put the Aussies in an unbeatable position, allowing the home side to win by an innings and 20 runs. It was the final match in the series, with Australia winning 3-0. Langer was named the player of the series scoring 331 runs throughout. That included back-to-back centuries in Tests two and three.
