Justin Langer issue: Cricket Australia call Tim Paine, Aaron Finch for emergency meeting

The T20 World Cup is more than a month away, however, the Australian team's preparations apparently look to have hit a roadblock with reports of unrest between coach Justin Langer and players inside the dressing room. While the Australian cricket board has supported Langer in terms of working with the team until his contract expires, age.com.au has reported that Test team captain Tim Paine and white ball format skipper Aaron Finch were called by Cricket Australia in an emergency meeting to find a solution to the Langer issue. 

Cricket Australia meets Tim Paine and Aaron Finch

As per reports, Cricket Australia chairman Earl Eddings and CEO Nick Hockley held a zoom call with Paine, Aaron Finch, and vice-captain Pat Cummins to discuss Langer's future. The report further stated that the players and support staff were encouraged to be forthright with their views. Earlier, Finch had raised concerns about reports being leaked about Langer's intense coaching methods, Paine has backed the coach stating that, “There’s no hiding from it - it’s been a tough week. Certainly tougher for Justin Langer than anyone else. 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. That’s certainly not the case. We haven’t lived up to our own standards on the field."

Finch in his statement over the Langer issue said, “Playing cricket for Australia is hard enough as a player without worrying about all that stuff off the field. That’s out of our control. There’s nothing that can be done from our point of view. All we can do is try and get results. You see everywhere, if you get results, things look after themselves more often than not, don’t they."

Malcolm Conn on his time while working with Justin Langer

Former media manager for Cricket Australia, Malcolm Conn has now opened about his experience of working with Langer in the past in which he narrated about the struggle to work with the coach during a part of the 2019 World Cup, the Ashes and the T20I series Down Under against Sri Lanka.

In an article for the Sydney Morning Herald Conn wrote:  “You were never certain whether your question was going to be met with an answer or an explosion. Even a simple post on the player and support staff group chat letting them know of a particular issue that had been brought up in the media could elicit a rebuke. Some players didn’t like walking past Langer’s seat on the team bus lest they prompted a negative response. If things weren’t going well, the odd player would ask,“How’s the grumpy coach?”