The Langer Way: Going, Going, Gone. 

Perhaps not since Kerry Packer bought out the entire Australian cricket team back in 1977 to launch his private league have Australians, especially the cricketing community themselves, been so polarised. This is highlighted by the war of words between the former cricketers of the recent past and the current administrators, which has also dragged in the current captain and the senior player group of the Australian cricket team.

The reason behind the rancour? The letting go or sacking or resignation – depends how you’re positioned – of Justin Langer, who coached the men’s Australian cricket team over the last 4 years. More importantly, Langer’s departure has thrown up the question: Who wields the most power and who is calling the shots in ascertaining the role of the coach in modern-day cricket? Cricketers, coaches or the administrators?

It appears the cricketers are holding sway when it comes to Australia, even if it is not always the case, if at all, in other countries. In fact, the four years of Langer and its contentious conclusion may have just become the latest case study in man management and style of leadership that could rival any that even Harvard professors can put together.

For students of cricket and of all its nuances on and off the field, it provides for fascinating reading. Let’s put it in perspective.

The Coming in of Justin Langer

Australians woke up one day in March 2018 to discover their top two cricketers had been caught cheating and worse, had recruited a junior member of the team to ‘do the deed’. That incident would be known as Sandpapergate, another descriptive adaptation of the notorious Watergate scandal of the early 1970s that brought down the Nixon government in the USA.

Sandpapergate would bring down the clean reputations of the then Australian captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner, as well as their leadership roles in the Australian cricket team. The third one to lose his present and future would be the young Cameron Bancroft, who had been tasked by Warner (in the full knowledge of Smith) to rub one side of the ball with sandpaper hidden in the palm of his hand.

All three got suspended for a year while coach Darren Lehmann, who claimed he had no idea about the plan, was fired. Within a few weeks, the top management of Cricket Australia was gone, and there were changes in the board. A deep review of team culture and conduct was undertaken with its main findings being win-at-all-costs stress on the team for the sake of its image and for commercial interests.

With team morale at its nadir, it was felt imperative that the image of Australian cricket, and especially that of the player group be restored. While changes were made at the corporate level to set guidelines for a more balanced and humanistic approach, the search started for a coach who would instil the good old Aussie values of playing hard to win but within the rules. And that there was a bigger stake in the game than winning all the time any which way you can.

That’s where Justin Langer was headhunted for the job. A player who’d absorbed and embraced the values of the ethical leadership style of Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh and taking pride in wearing the baggy green. Langer also was part of the squad that won everything under the sun and when travelling overseas were considered the great ambassadors of Australian cricket and all it stood for.

Justin Langer had already been an interim coach in 2016 when Lehmann was on leave and also had a good track record of taking Perth Scorchers to the BBL title, besides also coaching his home state Western Australia. As such his management style was known to the Australian side when he stepped in as full-time coach in May 2018 for the next four years.

The Langer Way

He was a taskmaster, who pushed players to the limits. And a bit beyond that. Empathy was not one of his stronger traits.

Last season, a video went viral where, in the company of players and coaching staff in the watching area of the dressing room, he is seen getting off his chair and ripping off his cap. He then kicks the trash can where everything stumbles out. His ire has been brought about when Finch, who has not taken a DRS when given out to a catch at short leg, is shown by subsequent replays to be not out. He is then shown to be quizzing Finch in a state of anger, leaving the veteran opener and white-ball captain, embarrassed as he tries to put a word in that he though the ball had grazed his glove (which had grazed his pad). Not something a senior cricketer and leader would like to be said in front of his mates. Some of whom he was leading on the field in ODIs and T20s.

But then such acts and what transpired especially in the last two years of his coaching tenure was not very unexpected, given his reputation for being unabashedly expressive. Both by the players and the management. Ironically, he had bent a bit over the last six months in his management style with the players. That had come about in August of last year following a face off after the brief but acrimonious Bangladesh tour in which the Australian team had underperformed.

Forced on the back foot

While Langer was isolating in Adelaide on return, then red-ball captain Tim Paine, white ball captain Aaron Finch along with then vice-captain and now captain Pat Cummins sat plus two top executives of Cricket Australia had a candid conversation with Langer on his coaching style. It’s not working was the message. The world had moved on from his way of communicating they told him.

Though no one had ever spoken to him so frankly of his shortcomings, Langer took it on the chin. He held some 40 virtual meetings with each of the players and support staff, listening to how and where they felt uncomfortable. He then vowed to step back, give the players some breathing room and be less intense. He handed over a lot of work relating to players to his assistant coaches.

Australia subsequently won the T20 World Cup under Finch and the Ashes 4-0 under Pat Cummins, captaining Australia for the first time. Paine by then resigned from the captaincy and exited the team following some sexting revelations.

Then came the board meeting that was to decide on his contract extension. By then, Langer had already met the CEO and senior executives on the possibility of another 4 years, which he was confident of getting considering that he had restored Australian pride, faith of the fans, lifted Australia to No. 1 ranking from much lower down, won a T20 World Cup that they were not expected to win and retained the Ashes in unimaginable dominance in all areas.

The deadened offer

What was offered to him was a six-month renewal with no promise of an extension. Langer was furious and walked away from the job with the Pakistan tour still to come under him. What angered him more was the fact that senior players and even a couple of coaching staff had not given favourable reviews when interviewed by Cricket Australia. He felt backstabbed and manipulated after the way he had tried and to some extent changed himself.

This decision, and the sly way in which it was put to him leaving him no choice but to quit, has not gone down too well with some of his contemporaries and former mates in the Australian side. Even those that came into the team after he’d retired. That has led to a cavalcade of criticism aimed at the Board and CEO specifically. But it has also been aimed at the Australia captain for not supporting Langer. This is where it starts to get complicated. And ugly. In fact, such is the causticity of some of the comments aimed at Cummins — especially by Mitchell Johnson — that CEO Nick Hockley had to come to the defence of the current Test captain.

What went wrong?

So what happened and what went against Langer, the most successful coach after John Buchanan who coached an all-conquering Australian side comprising of several matchwinners from 1999 to 2007? This player group pales in front of those legends like the Waugh twins, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Ricky Ponting, Adam Gilchrist, Mathew Hayden and Langer himself. To still rise to the levels Australian cricket must have taken some good strategic planning.

Or was it a case of what Shane Warne once said of coach Buchanan; that he contributes hardly anything and that since the players are world-class they manage to plan, strategize, perform and win on their own. Warne brought it up again a few days back in a podcast, saying that if the players had a say in those days half the team would have voted him out. It may sound contradictory then that he is standing up for a coach when he was very vocal in his playing days that you don’t need a coach in cricket, especially of a world-class team. But possibly he feels these players need to be guided strategically and tactically.

Shane is of course one of the big names who has called out Cricket Australia management. His interpretation of the six-month offer is that they were challenging Langer to defend his T20 World Cup title in October with no reward if he does and leaving on a low if Australia lose the title at home.

Coming back to the question of what happened. For some time now, the news was coming through that Langer had severe mood swings. Players didn’t know when he’d blow up on any issue. They were thus afraid to approach him.

Also that he ran an overly demanding fitness regime and long fielding sessions, even in severe heat.

Getting up close and personal

It could also get personal as a senior reporter of Fox Sport, Tom Morris wrote on its website, albeit after Langer had resigned. According to Morris, it concerned the documentary The Test: A New Era for Australia’s Team, an 8-part series made by Amazon.

“On the day Langer found out the players had negotiated $41,000 more than him to appear in the documentary, he changed plans late and without warning,” wrote Morris. “On the whiteboard in Melbourne, a light fielding session was scheduled. It was supposed to be nothing more than a top-up on the MCG turf.

“Langer, having just discovered he’d undervalued himself despite being the centrepiece of the production, took half-a-dozen players and torched them with a gruelling fitness and fielding session in the heat.”

Morris further wrote that “Those involved suspect the unplanned session was payback, though they will never be sure. At least two players vomited. They weren’t angry at being made to work hard, rather they were suspect it was the temperamental coach letting off steam.”

Langer also believed — and he shouldn’t be faulted at that — that the players under him should follow the same arduous training sessions he followed when he was a player. Some players didn’t like that and felt it was over the top and unnecessarily onerous.

Australia divided

Langer felt, and he said so in his departing note also, that most of the players and some of the coaching staff did not want him to continue. One of his former teammates and captain, Ricky Ponting thought on the same lines when he said: “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.”

Another, the legendary Warne was even more blunt and critical of the current players when he said on a podcast: “It’s not a great Australian cricket team we are talking about here. But all that Justin Langer put in over three or four years, we are just starting to see the rewards for his hard work. His brutalness, his intensity and his kick up the backside to the players. You know why? They needed it!”

Nevertheless, not everyone backed the former teammates of Langer. Ian Chappell, admittedly one of the most outspoken cricketers of all time and who had many a tiff with the administrators in his playing days in the 1970s fired his salvo when he said: “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.”

Too much player power?

Chappell has said that because Cummins has copped a lot of slack for not standing up for Langer. And for not recommending his extension. The question that is being asked though is whether such player power is good for the game. That players shouldn’t be picking their coaches.

To be fair, there is ostensibly a conflict of interest here. No modern-day player, with private leagues to play as well as sponsorship contracts, would want to risk injury in training. As such, he might not be in prime condition over a five-day Test with the loser being coach and country.

On the other hand, these are professional players who know that if they do not perform to the expectations set out for them, someone will step into their place. So they won’t let their fitness standards down.

The pandemic and the resulting bubble has further worn down the cricketer. He is already carrying a lot of mental stress, on his own day in, day out away from his wife, family, girlfriends and mates. Called on for long training in the gym and in the heat, they can break easy.

Cummins and his teammates saw all that and more. It’s already hugely demanding on the field during intense games in all weather conditions to come back after a session and be told off. He and the others also didn’t trust Langer to hold the peace he had made over the last six months. At the time he could have feared that if he didn’t back down and Australia didn’t win the T20 World Cup, he would be axed there and then. But given the four-year extension, he could well turn the screws again.

Bob Dylan’s Legacy

What can be said with certainty though is that the executive management in Cricket Australia has lost face. They didn’t have an easy way out though and only had a lose-lose option. Offer him another 4-year contract and risk complete meltdown in the dressing room, with results being affected. Let him go and have to answer what other results they expect from a coach.

They took the option that may make them look bad, even selfish in the short run. But at least the atmosphere will be more congenial. It is now up to the players to show that a more collaborative approach between coach and players works better. It nevertheless puts additional pressure on them with the T20 World Cup later this year. Whatever they may think or say about Justin Langer, he was the winning coach last year. Should they not retain the title at home, the question will be asked from the management and players: Was Langer right in his approach?

He certainly thinks he was. For now, though it doesn’t matter. For now, he must be humming the Bob Dylan song :

I’ve just reached a place
Where the willow don’t bend
There’s not much more to be said
It’s the top of the end
I’m going

I’m closin’ the book
On the pages and the text
And I don’t really care
What happens next

I been hangin’ on threads
I been playin’ it straight
Now, I’ve just got to cut loose

Grandma said, “Boy, go and follow your heart
And you’ll be fine at the end of the line

I been walkin’ the road
I been livin’ on the edge
Now, I’ve just got to go
Before I get to the ledge