Cricket 2021: Justin Langer clears the air with senior players as Ricky Ponting offers his support

‘I think we are all in a better place now.’ With some huge games around the corner, Justin Langer is confident he has cleared the air with some of his senior players.

Former teammates and close friends Ricky Ponting and Justin Langer

A series of frank behind-the-scenes conversations between Justin Langer and select players has cleared the air as Ricky Ponting threw his weight behind a coach who was feeling the pressure of an anonymous whispering campaign.

Langer has rung certain players and asked them to be honest with him in a series of confronting conversations following unsourced complaints about his disciplinarian approach to the job.

The coach said that while it had been a difficult time, he believed the team would grow from it.

“We all got a lot off our chests,” he told the West Australian newspaper. “I think we are all in a better place now.”

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Justin Langer chats with Ricky Ponting during Australia’s World Cup campaign in 2019.

On Sydney radio station 2GB to promote his wine label, Ponting was asked if he thought his former teammate was the right man to lead Australia to the T20 World Cup and the Ashes.

“I have no doubt” Langer told Ben Fordham. “I know there’s been a lot of negativity the last few weeks, I really felt for Justin, I rang Justin a few times.

“They just got back from that tough tour of the West Indies and then Bangladesh and he was locked up in his hotel room in Adelaide and he was sort of copping it left, right and centre.

“Me and a lot of his close friends have reached out to him.

Captain Tim Paine and Langer share a moment together at a training session.

“It sounds like the captain and some of the senior players have had some pretty direct conversation with Justin about the things they think he needs to get better at, but he is also the sort of bloke who seeks that sort of advice anyway.

“He wants to find out how he can get better and what he can do better.”

Langer told the West Australian it had been a difficult few weeks.

“I look back at 1993, 1998 and 2001 when I was dropped from the Australian team,” Langer said.

“I was devastated when that happened and thought they were among the worst times in my life.

Langer and paceman James Pattinson during the pre-Test warm-up session last summer. Picture: AAP

“Yet I look back on them now and realise that those experiences, as gutting as they were at the time, made me stronger and better as a player.

“The situation at the moment is very tough, but I am confident that I will become a better coach from it.”

Chairman of Cricket Australia Earl Eddings and chief executive Nick Hockley intervened in the issue recently in a phone hook-up with Tim Paine, Aaron Finch and Pat Cummins.

Ponting says that results will always put pressure on a coach, but high-profile absences from the most recent tours took a heavy toll.

“If you wind the clock back not even 12 months ago, the Australian team were the number one ranked Test team and T20 team in the world, we know all the talent is there.

“The last tour to Bangladesh and the West Indies was pretty tough to judge the coaches on because I think there was eight or nine out of the starting XI for T20 and one-day cricket weren’t there.

“As I made really clear to Justin, when you’re in that position in Australian sport, whether you’re a high-profile coach or a captain of a national team, if you’re not getting the results then you’ve got to expect the negativity.”

Originally published as Cricket 2021: Justin Langer clears the air with senior players as Ricky Ponting offers his support