Langer admits in-form Australia will need ‘nerves of steel’ to ace chases in knockouts

Head coach says the extra batter in the side allows them to “back ourselves to chase anything”

“Most teams are winning chasing and you saw with a set-up of our side with the extra batter for most of the games in the lead up to this [semi-final] that we’ll back ourselves to chase anything,” Langer said. “That said, finals are a different proposition. So we’ll wait and see. There’s also been the dew factor that didn’t really come into it last night, we didn’t think [it did] in Sharjah.

“But it takes nerves of steel to chase big scores in finals. It’s certainly worked out well so far.”

Langer has been rewarded for a bold shift in strategy moving away from Australia’s long-time preference to play six batters and five bowlers, opting for seven batters and four bowlers with just one spinner for the majority of the tournament. The only exception in this trend was the heavy defeat at the hands of England.

Mitchell Marsh and Glenn Maxwell bowled four overs between them against West Indies for just 22 runs while Australia’s three quicks took six wickets.

“I’ve never seen him as fit as he is at the moment,” Langer said. “He’s always fit. But this is at a different level at the moment. You’ve got to work very hard at his age. For him to do what he’s doing, you saw the way he played, ran between wickets yesterday, [in] hot conditions – it’s a great tribute to his professionalism and how hungry he is to keep playing great cricket. So, it’s nice to see him getting the results he’s had to play two amazing innings for us. And let’s hope he stands up again in the finals like the other boys have been doing so far.”

“The difference is we’ll be sitting on the sidelines watching,” Langer said. “But he’s enjoying it. We’ve been back and forth messaging throughout the tournament. No insights, though. We’re sort of keeping business to business.

“It’s going to be good to see him. I haven’t seen him for a long time. But there’s lots of relationships in cricket and when it comes to Thursday night, we’ll put our friendship down for three hours and we’ll get to business and it should be good fun.”