World Cup 2019: Justin Langer feels England are the hot favourites to win the tournament

Australia head coach Justin Langer has showered praises over the arch-rivals England team for their phenomenal run in the ODI cricket in the last few years. The World Cup hosts are currently busy playing Pakistan in the five-match series and have cleared their intentions to the other teams. England have already won the series and are the favourites to make it 4-0 in the final ODI.

Langer lauded the team’s consistency and termed them as the hot-favourites for the upcoming World Cup. The Aussie coach is not the first person to tout England as the favourites to clinch the 50-over title as many experts and former cricketers have agreed about the same. The Eoin Morgan-led side has redefined the ODI cricket with their batting skills in the last four years and no score is safe while playing against them.

In the ongoing series itself, England have managed to gun down the totals in excess of 340 easily and that shows the way they are batting currently.

They deserve to be the number one

“They’re (England) playing brilliant cricket, aren’t they? They’re obviously the red-hot favourites for the tournament, they’re playing here in their home country, they’re playing brilliantly, they deserve to be the number one team in the world. So we’re looking forward to playing them. There’s always good rivalry between us and it’s going to be nice for us to see how we’re at against the best team in the world,” Langer was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.

Australia are scheduled to play their arch-rivals on May 25 in the warm-up game before the two teams lock horns exactly after a month in the tournament proper at the iconic Lord’s. Justin Langer is looking forward to playing against England and India and is of the opinion that Australia will have to give their absolute 100% in order to get past these teams.

“And when it comes to playing India and England, we’re just going to have to compete harder and be ready for them,” the 48-year-old signed off.

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