'You played against Allan Border, David Boon. Now we have literally kids playing': Justin Langer hits back at Sachin Tendulkar for accusing Australia of playing defensively

Australian head coach Justin Langer has hit out at former Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar for his comment that the hosts have been playing with a defensive mindset in the ongoing first Test between Australia and India in Adelaide.

Langer, speaking to the media during the rain-break on Day Three, differed with Tendulkar's opinion that Australia were playing defensively, and stated that his players who are presently playing are kids, and not like the ones who played in the past. He said,

"I saw the tweet from Sachin saying he’s never seen an Australian side bat so defensively. That said every time he’s played Australia he had Allan Border or David Boon, guys who have played 300 or 400 Tests between them. We’ve literally got kids when it comes to Test cricket playing. They’re just finding their own skin, they’re fighting their backsides off, not only to help us win the Test match, but to find out what Test cricket’s about."

The former Australian opener also mentioned that some good bowling by the Indian bowlers, especially Ravichandran Ashwin, was the reason behind the lack of runs for the Australian batters.

"You’re always looking to score, every one of them is looking to score, but they bowled really well, Ashwin bowled well, we’ve got to find different ways of playing him, that’ll come. But it’s a very different team this batting order than what we’ve seen in past Australian teams," he added.

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Sachin Tendulkar had on Day Two questioned the intent of the Australian batsmen, after their bowlers had bowled India out for a mere 250. The hosts were struggling to get runs on the board before they were eventually bowled out for 235.