Australia are missing as many as five players who steered the team to success during the 2015 Cricket World Cup but Langer says it provides an opportunity to this young group of players to prove their credentials at the big stage. "All one-day internationals are pressure games, but certainly in this instance ... there's real pressure," the caretaker coach said.
"It's game on. We haven't done ourselves any favours in a sense that we haven't got ourselves automatically into the final like we would have liked, so it's good to see guys under pressure. And this will be a little bit more pressure than a normal one-day international on Tuesday," he added.
While Langer has been coaching the Australian team (as a stand-in for the rested Darren Lehmann) only for the past few weeks, he's credited with the development of Perth-based Big Bash team, Perth Scorchers, who under him have won two of the three Big Bash league (BBL) final appearances so far. Langer was also at the helm when Western Australia Warriors triumphed in the 2014 domestic fifty-over Matador Cup tournament.
The former Australian top-order batsman's experience has taught him plenty of lessons, which he plans to utilize, as Australia gear up for the do-or-die encounter. "I always believe the harder you try, the worse it gets," he said. "If we beat (the Windies it will be) on skill, not emotion, and not getting caught up in the actual game. Sometimes in big games what you tend to do is over-analyse it. You want everything to be perfect but often ... the less you can put in their mind, the more you can just let them go and play (the better)," Langer added.
Speaking about his experience of working with the Scorchers in the BBL, Langer said it's all about enjoying the game for him, something that will eventually result in long periods of success, something he feels should be replicated at the national level. "We don't have team meetings in Twenty20 cricket (with the Scorchers). We might have one or two dots up on the board.
"And people will talk about all this analysis of different oppositions. Well, I must be doing it wrong at the Scorchers, because we tend to go the opposite way. We want to simplify it, particularly for young minds. And for senior players, they've been there before. We don't need to complicate it for them. They've got their cues, they know their processes. So we'll just try and keep it as simple as possible and hopefully they can go out and play and enjoy the experience of playing at this magnificent ground (Kensington Oval)," he added.
Adam Zampa, who was carted around for three successive sixes by Marlon Samuels, in Australia's defeat to West Indies during last week's league match in St. Kitts, also received the backing of his coach, despite having been left out in favour of Glenn Maxwell for the Barbados game against South Africa.
"I think he's been pretty good. He probably just got his lines a bit wrong the other night," the coach said. "He went a bit wide and with some of those big West Indians, if you just get it in their arc as we saw, they're going to belt you out of the ground. But he's learning and he was the first to admit after the game that he perhaps didn't get his strategy right. And he's usually really good, he's a really competitive young bloke," Langer noted.
The stand-in coach also hinted that the leg-spinner might be back in reckoning for Tuesday's match against West Indies, although he didn't reveal anything in detail. "We'll work out what the best way to beat the West Indies is. Whether it's with a leg-spinner or four quicks - which is always so successful in Australia for us - we'll work all that out in the next 24 hours," Langer concluded.
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