Justin Langer says watching his wife in tears is a watershed moment in his job as Australia's cricket coach.

Langer has told of his wife Sue breaking down over breakfast with their children before a day's play in the Sydney Test match against India in January this year.

"I had never seen my wife cry," Langer told ESPN.

"She said: 'I just don't like what's happening here. I don't like what it's doing to you, I don't like what it's doing to us. People are so mean, what people are saying about you and the team and Australian cricket'.

"That was a real eye opener for me, that it was affecting my family."

The breakfast incident happened while India secured a 2-1 Test series win against Langer's Australians.

Soon after, Langer snapped at a journalist during a media conference ahead of the limited over series while discussing Glenn Maxwell's non-selection for Test cricket.

"I was also amazed at the backlash of that as well," Langer said. "I apologised straight after the event, that's me.

"But I realised then and the way people said 'he's getting angry, he's losing it'.

"I didn't feel that but my wife was getting upset, that was a real moment.

"I've said privately and publicly a few times if I look back to my career, 1993 when I got dropped (from the Test team) for the first time, really tough time but pivotal in my life.

"I got dropped in 2001, a really, really tough time but pivotal in my life.

"I look to January 2019 in Sydney, really tough time but I have got no doubt it'll be a massive part of my evolution as a coach."

Meanwhile, Langer's Ashes blueprint, which features employing Aussie legend Steve Waugh as a consultant with a watchful eye and countless tales of Australian triumphs, is starting to become clear.

A version of the rotation policy, so widely panned when spruiked by Pat Howard, is expected to be embraced in a five-Test series that has been squeezed into a tick over six weeks.

There is no suggestion Pat Cummins and co. will be needlessly rested but that a pack of interchanging fresh fast bowlers could give Australia a better chance of series victory, rather than pushing stars to breaking point.

Langer and chairman of selectors Trevor Hohns picked six pacemen in their 17-man squad, bucking tradition by naming no second spinner.

James Pattinson, poised to return after the latest setback in a horrendous stretch of injuries that started in the 2013 Ashes, is arguably the most exciting of the group for Hohns, Langer and captain Tim Paine.

Hohns' face lit up like a child on Christmas Eve when recently asked about Pattinson's likely return in the first Test.

Paine is not a religious man but claims to have been praying for Pattinson to remain fit, such is the Victorian's importance.

Australia's top six also remain unsettled because of several factors; Usman Khawaja's recovery from a hamstring injury plus the fact Smith, David Warner, Cameron Bancroft, Matthew Wade and Mitch Marsh are back in the Test squad.

- with AAP