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.
2. Langer crushes NZ in Adelaide - 2004
Throughout his career, Langer has had the most success against his Trans-Tasman rivals. Averaging 62.94, he scored at least a half-century in nearly 40 per cent of his innings against New Zealand.
Finishing with five 50s and four 100s, his 2004 performance against New Zealand was his most impressive.
In the first game of the series, Langer only managed 34 runs as middle-order batters Michael Clarke and Adam Gilchrest both reached triple figures. Langer was looking to make up for that performance and was on the attack from the outset.
While normally playing at a slower pace, Langer showed his intent early blasting the Kiwi bowlers all around the ground. Hitting a four in the first ball of the match, he then hit another four in the second over jumping out to 23 runs off just ten deliveries.
While he wasn't able to keep the same pace, he maintained the same intensity as the New Zealand bowlers who had no answer for Langer's batting.
After managing a partnership of 137 with Matthew Hayden, he subsequently had partnerships of over 100 with both Ricky Ponting and Darren Lehmann.
By the time he was out, Langer had 215 runs and Australia was 4-445.
In the second innings, he fell just four short of a half-century but still finished with 261 runs for the match.
New Zealand scored 251 in their first innings and 250 in their second. The win gave Australia a 2-0 lead, winning them the best-of-three series.
His game-winning first innings won him the player of the match award, scoring over half the score of the entire New Zealand team.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kZmghBMgYA
