"They are like my younger brother" - Justin Langer rubbishes fallout with Australia players

Former Australia head coach Justin Langer has denied any claims of falling out with the Australian national players in the backdrop of his comments made on a podcast.

In early February, Justin Langer resigned from the role of Australia's men's head coach, even though there were still four months left before his tenure would expire at that point.

The 52-year-old rejected Cricket Australia's six-month contract extension offer as he felt belittled despite Australia winning the 2021 T20I World Cup and the Ashes under him.

During his conversation with the BackChat podcast, Langer blasted the Australian players for being "cowards" while speaking about him behind his back.

He said:

"Everyone was being nice to my face, but I was reading about this stuff and half of it, I swear to God and on my kids’ lives, I could not believe that is what was making the paper. A lot of journalists use the word ‘source’. I would say, change that word to ‘coward’."

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"They are like my younger brothers" - Justin Langer on current Australian players

While dismissing the perception of an ugly fallout with the Australian players over his unceremonious exit, Langer wrote in his column for the West Australian newspaper:

"This rubbish dialogue of me fighting with the current team must stop. Simply because it is not true. They are my friends. They are like my younger brothers. Anything said to the contrary is false."

He further mentioned:

"For four years we drank, ate, celebrated, strategised and lived together. We fought back from ‘sandpaper gate’ and COVID together and we won the T20 World Cup and Ashes together."

In June, Justin Langer was said to be taking up a coaching role with the BBL franchise Hobart Hurricanes after Ricky Ponting took charge as head of strategy.

That move never took place, however, as former Australia men's assistant coach Jeff Vaughan was appointed Hobart Hurricanes coach in July 2022.