Days after Cricket Australia boss threw all his support behind him, Australian head coach Justin Langer, who finds himself in the middle of a raging storm, has found another high-profile support from the Australian team.
This time, Test captain Tim Paine has come forward to rally around Langer after what he called a “tough” week for the former Australian opener when he had “robust discussions” with Cricket Australia and the senior players.
Paine said that the ambition of the side is to become the number one side in the world and for that, they have to have tough conversations while also calling the blame game for Australia’s loss on the shoulders of Langer as a matter of “shame”.
“Then got around him [Langer], supported him and looked to move forward. We’re really looking forward to the next six months with JL. No doubt the week has been difficult for him. We’ve been able to galvanise around him and 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,” Paine said.
“We want to be the best team in the world and to do that we need to have some tough and robust conversations. We’ve certainly done that as a senior group in the last 24-48 hours. It’s just been a bit of shame I think in the last week that a lot of the failings around Australian cricket have been pinned on JL, that’s certainly not the case.”
Langer had taken over the coaching role in the aftermath of the Newlands ball-tampering saga that had erupted massive leadership change both in the Australian cricket board and the national side. He has been under enormous pressure after several players reported “coaching methods” to be too strict and inflexible.
His term is due to end after the ICC World T20, and after the backings of the CA boss and Test skipper Tim Paine, it is most likely that he will complete his term albeit with the aura of controversies persisting around him.