T20 World Cup 2021: Andrew Symonds Reveals He Was Contacted By Justin Langer To Become Australia's Mentor

Former Australian Cricketer Andrew Symonds has revealed that he was contacted by Coach of Australia Men’s National Cricket Team Justin Langer to join the side as a mentor for the ICC T20 World Cup. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he was unable to accept the offer.

Meanwhile, Australia National Cricket Team is placed in the Group 1 of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021, and they will start their Super12 stage campaign with a battle against South Africa on October 23. The Aaron Finch-led side recently faced New Zealand in the warm-up game, and they won the match. They will next lock horns with India in the warm-up game on Wednesday.

I was really excited to go on that and honored – Andrew Symonds

“Justin Langer is the man who contacted me. Because he’s had Ponting, Hussey, and Steve Waugh went on the Ashes, they were just trying to get players who had played different types of cricket and had extended periods of success in and around the group and a fresh face,”

Symonds further added that he was honoured to get the unexpected offer. Former Australian all-rounder stated:

“I was really excited to go on that and honored. I said, ‘I can’t believe you’ve asked me to go’. I certainly wasn’t expecting that looking at the players who had done it.”

Andrew Symonds pinpointed that new generation batters don’t look forward to spending enough time in the middle, and they try to go berserk too quickly. He showered praise on legendary Indian captain MS Dhoni for his approach of taking time and then going for the big shots. He stated:

“He (MS Dhoni) was one of the best, but he spent the time. Are we spending enough time getting ourselves in? It seems to me as if we go a little bit too hard, too quickly. But they probably call me a dinosaur. If they want to compete and win these things, it’s a major part they need to fix up,”

Talking about the things he would have discussed with the Australian team, Andrew Symonds asserted:

“That was going to be one of the things I was going to try to address with them. People say the game’s changed, but you still need to score your ones and twos. If someone bowls you a good ball, the best players in short-form cricket can get a good ball down to third-man or they can drop it at their feet and get off strike,”

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