Justin Langer will offer England a new approach: Ruthlessness and harsh work ethic

“Was that ruthless?” Justin Langer asks his side in 'The Test', Amazon’s behind-the-scenes documentary following the Australian cricket team. It’s the first day of the final Ashes Test in 2019. Australia have already safely retained the urn, but Langer has his thoughts on something else: the chance to win the Test series in England outright, rather than merely draw and keep hold of the Ashes.

The scene is a window into the exacting standards that Langer demands of his team. The same was true of his actions during the third Test, when Ben Stokes’s heist stopped Australia retaining the urn with two Tests still to play. After Nathan Lyon fumbled a run-out opportunity that would have handed Australia victory, Langer kicked down a bin; as England raced towards victory, he was on his knees, putting the rubbish back (watch video below).

The next day, Langer assembled the Australian squad together, forcing them to watch every ball of England’s 76-run tenth-wicket partnership. It was a tactic that borrowed from advice Langer had received from the Adelaide Crows Australian Rules football coach Don Pyke, who once said that he had waited too long to conduct a debrief after a Grand Final defeat.

Instead, Langer’s approach was to force all of Australia’s squad to watch their gory hour - the pyrotechnics of Stokes, interspersed with a dropped catch, Lyon’s botched run-out and Australia prematurely squandering their final review, ultimately costing them the match - in full.

“It's going to give us the s---s watching it,” Langer tells his team. “But we're going to learn from it, shake ourselves off, and we're going to get up to be ready for the next Test match."

During the team meeting, Langer critiqued Tim Paine’s captaincy, especially