'A sad day for Australian cricket,' former cricketers react to Justin Langer's resignation

Justin Langer stepped down as Australia head coach after declining a short-term extension to his contract. Former greats have expressed shock and disbelief with the way Cricket Australia (CA) handled the entire situation.

In fact, Langer's former opening partner Matthew Hayden has lashed out on Test skipper Pat Cummins, who like many others did not endorse Langer to continue publically.

“It was absolutely clear that no one backed him,” Hayden told ABC Radio on Saturday (February 5).

“If you listen to the Australian captain speak the other day, there was not one mention of any sort of commendation or support.

“That would have been extremely hurtful.

“How do you reckon he’d be going? To hear the Australian captain on Sunrise offer no support and commendation. How would you feel?

“And now we hear Pat Cummins saying, ‘This is a high-performance environment, we all go through a high-performance review’. I’m sorry Pat but that’s garbage … this just reeks of being orchestrated.”

Former pacer Mitchell Johnson expressed anger over the way things unfolded. “I’m pretty angry,” Johnson told the ABC.

“There’s been a lot of disrespect. Not every player is going to like the same coach ... so what does that mean for the future? Each time a player doesn’t like a coach we will be back at square one again?”

Former Australia captain, Ricky Ponting, who is also one of the contenders to succeed Langer said that it was a said day for Australian cricket.

“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,” Ponting said.

“I think it’s been almost embarrassing the way they have handled those two cases.

“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.

“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.”

Langer's tenure, which began in 2018,  was to end at the end of the Pakistan tour, starting next month. He was rested for the home T20I series against Sri Lanka, which is due to begin next week with Andrew McDonald taking charge. 

However, it now appears that McDonald will take over as the interim head coach at least till the end of the Pakistan tour.