Live Score
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players
'Really sad day for Australian cricket': Ponting leads furious ex-AUS cricketers in bashing 'disgraceful' exit of Langer
Langer announced his resignation less than a day after Cricket Australia offered him a short-term contract extension.
Former teammates of Justin Langer have lamented what they called a lack of player support after he stepped down as head coach of the side on Saturday. Langer announced his resignation less than a day after Cricket Australia offered him a short-term contract extension.
The Aussie had taken over the reins as head coach during one of the darkest periods in Australian cricket history. Langer was appointed in the position following the Sandpapergate scandal where two of the leading players of the side; then-captain Steve Smith and David Warner were banned for a year on ball-tampering charges.
“It is a really sad day as far as Australian cricket is concerned and if you look back it has been a really poor six months on the whole in the way that Cricket Australia has handled some of the better people in the Australian cricket — Justin Langer and Tim Paine — and I think it’s been almost embarrassing the way they have handled those two cases," Ponting told ABC Radio.
“He mustn’t have had the full backing of the board. Me knowing Justin the way that I do, he was very keen to continue in the role, as he should have been after what’s been the best coaching period of his international career having just won the T20 World Cup and then the 4-0 result in the Ashes."
Ponting said that ever-increasing player power appeared to have left Langer in an untenable position.
“It seems like a very strange time for a coach to be departing. Reading the tea leaves it sounds like a few — and as he says to me a small group in the playing group and a couple of other staff around the team — haven’t entirely loved the way he has gone about it.
“That’s been enough to force a man who has put his life and heart and soul into Australian cricket and done a sensational job at turning around the culture and the way the Australian team has been looked at in the last few years to push him out of the job.”
Former Australia spinner Brad Hogg, who had shared the dressing room with Langer during their playing days, called it "disgraceful.".
"Disgraceful treatment of Langer. Would love to know what Langer's KPI's were when he took over the basket case left from South Africa? He left Australian cricket on top of the world from disaster. Great job mate," wrote Hogg.
Former Aussie quick Mitchell Johnson -- a veteran of 73 Tests -- said that Langer brought Australia out of a "pathetic cricketing culture."
"Congratulations JL on your great achievements as coach. You came in when you were needed & like you did with the WACA all those yrs ago, you turned it all around! The Australian way is the way you went about it. Hard work, honest conversation, one in all in attitude & so much more & you got a pathetic cricketing culture out of a ball tampering scandal & back into a respectable unit that the public wanted to watch again. Thank you for your service to Australian Cricket & also for staying true to yourself & family mate. Peace brother," wrote Johnson.
