Justin Langer - usually the forgotten man of the Australian cricket team.
Justin Langer now has 22 test hundreds, over 7000 test runs and yet is never considered 'great' - why?
I was trying to work this out, as in WA he is immensely popular, as captain of the State team and our test player along with Damien Martyn and Adam Gilchrist, yet year after year he hardly gets a mention in various state sporting awards.
Theory #1 - He isn't tall, dark and handsome.. maybe the sponsors just don't take much notice if you aren't 'perfect'.
Theory #2 - He doesn't have the elegance of Martyn or the power of Gilchrist.. but he does have consistency and fight.
Theory #3 - He is always perceived as a 'little battler' .. this is unfair, he gets lots of runs, and is not always 'battling'.
Justin Langer is a lovely person when you meet him, the day I got his autograph, he had his hand all strapped up, but still took the time to sign 100+ autographs for his fans, and when I first saw him in a Test match, he had noticed that every day before play, my brother and I came up to 1hr earlier than almost everyone else, and just quietly sat and watched the warmups.. so during the match he spotted us in the crowd.. and started smiling & waving.. we actually have a video of him doing this. He also has written the forward for a book that my Dad wrote.. all for free and out of the goodness of his heart..we didn't know him, and yet he would do that.
He may be called little, perceived as a grafter while at the crease, and written off as just an 'average' international cricketer.. but he is a real lovely guy, which in the end, is all that matters.
7 comments:
Nice post. Quite appropriate that you address JL as mini Tugga. He is officially nicknamed Junior Tugga anyway. I have always had a lot of respect for JL, especially since he declared that he would run through a brick wall for Tugga. I remember him making a comeback in 1998 in Pakistan and doing quite well. And who canforget his comeback at the Oval 4 years ago? And at one time, the label of a dour doughty nurdler and pusher might have been fair. Not anymore though, as you say. In recent years, he has been as agressive a bat as the next person. Perhaps the one thing that does go against his being considered among the greats, is his average of 45, well below the 50 mark considered to be the basic requisite for a batter to be called great.
Nice post. Quite appropriate that you address JL as mini Tugga. He is officially nicknamed Junior Tugga anyway. I have always had a lot of respect for JL, especially since he declared that he would run through a brick wall for Tugga. I remember him making a comeback in 1998 in Pakistan and doing quite well. And who canforget his comeback at the Oval 4 years ago? And at one time, the label of a dour doughty nurdler and pusher might have been fair. Not anymore though, as you say. In recent years, he has been as agressive a bat as the next person. Perhaps the one thing that does go against his being considered among the greats, is his average of 45, well below the 50 mark considered to be the basic requisite for a batter to be called great.
Yes, he isn't quite in the 'greats' club just yet.. I've just been reading that he's thinking of still being around in 2009 when the Ashes series are on again in England..lets see how far he's gone then :)
Thats so nice! I did not know this aspect of him! My respect for him has increased by folds now that I have read this, really. :)
What a nice post Mary.
You have nice anecdotes to tell us:-)
Keep them coming.
BTW you have no clue what a SRW fan Tugga is! You'll soon realise with ur interactions with him!
I've known him for aeons now, and we dare not utter a word against Tugga;-)
It's great that tugga is a huge SRW fan!!! any SRW fan is welcome on my blog :D !! Ricky Ponting fans are advised to be careful here though :P
JL is really, really nice! It's great to see the cricketers in real life.. pretty much all the aussie team are lovely too :)
Wow, i didnt know Langer was such a nice guy!!
what i hate in him the most is when he shakes his head after being given LBW by the umpire....
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