Australia Test captain Tim Paine has supported embattled head coach Justin Langer to move forward after “robust discussions” among the senior players and Cricket Australia (CA) leaders in an emergency meeting amid dressing-room leaks and reports of discontent over his coaching style.
Langer has yet again come under a barrage of scrutiny after consecutive white-ball series losses to the West Indies and Bangladesh with reports emerging about tensions between the players and the coach. He was previously also criticized over his intense leadership and mood swings after Australia’s Test series loss to the injury-hit Indian team at home earlier this year.
However, Paine has backed Justin Langer as head coach after Wednesday’s meeting, while revealing the senior players including Aaron Finch and Pat Cummins cleared the air with the coach. The skipper also insisted that it was unfair to blame him for the team's recent setbacks.
Paine said on radio station SEN Hobart on Friday: “It was important that myself, Aaron Finch, Pat Cummins, and the leaders of Australian cricket got around him, discussed things that needed to be discussed, and then got around him and supported him and looked to move forward.”
He continued, “There's no hiding from it, it's been a tough week, certainly for Justin Langer than it has been for anyone else. We've had some really robust conversations among our leaders in the last few days and we're really looking forward to the next six months with JL.
There's no doubt the week has been difficult for him, but as I said the last few days, we've been able to galvanize around him, to have some really robust discussions on where we want to take this cricket team, what we expect of him and what he expects of us. The T20 World Cup and Ashes are probably two of the biggest things that any Australian cricket and any Australian coach want to be a part of and we're all on the same page and can't wait to get started on both of those huge projects for us.”
Paine also said Langer should not be accountable for the series losses in recent times, as the players failed to live up to the expectations on the field. He added, “It’s been a bit of a shame the last week that a lot of the failings around Australian cricket have been pinned on JL (Langer). That’s certainly not the case. We haven’t lived up to our own standards on the field.”
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He signed off by saying, “We're looking forward to the World Cup, we're looking forward to the Ashes, it’s an exciting period for any cricketer. If anything, I think we're heading into that tournament and series even more galvanized and even more together.”
Recently, former Australian cricketer Matthew Hayden came out in support of Langer amid the reports about tensions between the players and the coach while slamming the Australian players for leaking team issues to the media.
Hayden told Melbourne radio station SEN: “A lot of the content coming out about this is downright disrespectful to a bloke that’s played over 100 test matches. Even this facetious discussion amongst senior players last night .... Umm, hello! What about meeting about the fact you’re number three in test cricket and number three in ODI rankings, and number six in T20 rankings?”
