Shane Watson opined that the time is right for Australia to move away from the traditional setup of having a single head coach in charge of all three formats – and strongly endorsed two potential candidates. Justin Langer, Australia’s former head coach, resigned from his role earlier this month.

Former Australia all-rounder Shane Watson stated his national side should have different coaches for each format following the resignation of Justin Langer earlier this month. “I think it is going to have to be a necessity to break up the formats with their (Australia’s) coaches,” said Watson on the latest episode of The ICC Review.

“I think there is a good chance they will split the roles as I don’t think it is sustainable that everyone does every single format for a long period of time. There is always going to be burnout and fatigue in a team environment, especially now with Covid and bubbles and similar situations that are around. The sooner that Cricket Australia (CA) break up the formats with the coaches I think everyone will benefit from it”, he added.

Following Langer’s resignation, the CA installed Andrew McDonald as interim head coach for Australia. Under McDonald, Australia are currently winning the five-match T20I series against Sri Lanka by 3-0. Still, Watson put his weight behind Trevor Bayliss as a long-term replacement.

“Andrew McDonald is a great coach and is in the early part of his career, but I would err towards experience just for this interim period for the next stage of Australian cricket. I love the experience Trevor Bayliss has. He has probably seen every single thing possible in cricket just about and I would love to see him get a great opportunity”, Watson explained.

Bayliss saw plenty of success during his tenures as a head coach of Sri Lanka (2007-2011) and England (2015-2019) in the past. He was impressive at domestic level in Australia and also in the Indian Premier League (IPL) as well.