Langer talks comeback as Hughes struggles

The pressure is mounting on Phillip Hughes. No sooner had Australia's embattled opener fallen cheaply to David Wigley, Northamptonshire's journeyman seamer, than reports were surfacing of Justin Langer's proposed comeback to Test cricket. And if that wasn't enough, the two batsmen best placed to usurp Hughes this tour, Shane Watson and Michael Hussey, both notched half-centuries on a rain-interrupted day in Northampton.
A day removed from overtaking Don Bradman as Australia's high first-class run scorer, Langer revealed he would be prepared to "play the third Test for Australia next week for nothing". The likelihood of Australia's selectors accepting his offer may well be infinitesimal but the stir it caused at Wantage Road on Friday said much about the concerns harboured about Hughes and his diminishing returns.
Since arriving in England with the Australian team, the 20-year-old has scored just 82 first-class runs at 13.66. Never before in his 28-game first-class career has he endured a stretch this long without registering a half century. His prolific feats for Middlesex now resemble a false dawn.
Hughes' efforts in South Africa, as well as his brisk 78 in the unofficial match against Sussex, might just have provided him with enough selection credits to carry through this Ashes series, but should his struggles continue Phil Jaques and Chris Rogers will certainly enter the frame for Australia's next Test assignment against West Indies. Langer may present a fair case with a typically solid 529 runs at 44.08 for Somerset this season, but at 38, and with no Tests to his name since the fifth and final match of the 2006-07 Ashes, his prospects are remote in the extreme.
"One of the boys in the Somerset changing room asked me 'if they asked you to play tomorrow, how much would it take?' and I said I would play the third Test for Australia next week for nothing," Langer told the Press Association on Friday. "When you have played that much, you miss the big Tests. I miss the hype of the Ashes series.