Australian cricket legend Ian Chappell has lashed out at the former players for supporting Justin Langer over his resignation as the Australian cricket team’s head coach last week and extended his support to under-fire Test skipper Pat Cummins over the entire controversy.
Recently, Langer resigned as Australia's head coach, claiming his disciplined coaching style wasn’t welcomed and loved by some of the support staff and Australian players.
Langer was offered a short-term contract till the upcoming ICC T20 World Cup 2022 in Australia in October-November, while his past contract was till June 2022, but the former coach rejected the offer as there were many players and support staff in Australian team who didn’t want to work with him.
Following the development, former Australian cricketers like Steve Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Mitchell Johnson, Adam Gilchrist, and Shane Warne launched a scathing attack at Cricket Australia (CA), Cummins and Australia players for not supporting and honoring Langer.
However, Chappell found it unfair to criticize Cummins for not publicly supporting the former coach and called Langer’s supporters his “PR machine”.
Chappell told the Wide World of Sports: “It's easy to lambast CA, because they are not very good, and it was only to be expected, their reaction. What annoys me is two things; the fact Pat Cummins, who has probably been as honest as you can be in this sort of thing, that he's copped a bit of a pasting… and the Justin Langer PR machine has been at work, and in a lot of cases that's been believed.”
Cummins was one of the players who had raised concerns about Langer's coaching style last year.
He further said that Cummins, who was one of the Australian players who had raised concerns about Langer's coaching style last year, should be involved in the process to select the new head coach.
The Aussie great added, “Within reason, I think the captain has got to get the coach that he gets on with and works well with.”
Meanwhile, former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum lauded Langer for the T20 World Cup 2021 title win but said his overseas Test record wasn’t good at all.
McCullum told SENZ Breakfast: “England is hopeless, so I think anyone that was at the helm in the Ashes, they would have won that. The T20 World Cup was a really good performance, but aside from that, the performance was just a bit middling for an Australian cricket side.”
He signed off by saying, “He didn't win a Test series away from home, which for an Australian side is pretty average really, and he wasn't overwhelmingly successful. Yes, he did a good job while he was there, but I can kind of see why they wanted to head in a different direction as well.”
(With PTI Inputs)
