The Australian cricket team has gone on the record to speak about Justin Langer’s coaching style and the events that led to his departure early in 2022.
Langer and Cricket Australia agreed to part ways in February last year following consistent reports of disharmony in the Australian dressing room.
It came after he rejected a six-month contract extension and just months after the Aussies won their first T20 World Cup and swept England in the Ashes 4-0.
Langer was in charge of the side at the time and appeared to have cooled his intense nature.
The second season of The Test premiered in Sydney on Monday night, with the first two episodes shown ahead of the release on Amazon Prime on Friday.
Langer had turned down an opportunity to feature in the second series, but Australian players appearing in the documentary spoke about their now-former coach.
“There was plenty of guys who don’t speak up, who don’t talk, and were afraid of JL,” Usman Khawaja said.
“That’s the truth.”
Nathan Lyon added: “I’ve always said you can never criticise someone who is extremely passionate in what they do, and that’s exactly what JL is.
“Did I struggle with some of the ups and downs? Yeah. Probably the biggest feedback from myself was just emotional levels (from) JL.”
One of the most revealing insights came from Test skipper Pat Cummins, with his captaincy a large theme of the upcoming season.
“Players and staff really crave consistency,” Cummins stated.
“Over the last couple of years, there were times when the environment just wasn’t that.
“Some people felt like they were walking on eggshells.
“The players wanted to create their own environment and it’s us taking responsibility for the team.”
Mitch Marsh also confirmed that Langer listened to feedback.
“JL was given feedback from the senior players in our group around certain things they wanted him to improve on I guess as a coach,” Marsh said.
“He listened and he did everything that was asked of him as the playing group.”
Late last year, Langer launched a stinging attack on Cummins and the team for a supposed lack of feedback.
He’s since attempted to walk back his original comments, which came on the Back Chat podcast.
“I spoke to Pat Cummins and Pat Cummins said to me probably five times ‘mate, this might be brutally honest’. I said ‘Pat, there is nothing brutal about your feedback, what’s brutal is I’m hearing it behind my back, through the media or through sources and no one is telling me’,” he added.
“I’ve never said this publicly... the hardest thing for all of it was I got the feedback, I did something about it, we won the T20 World Cup, we won the Ashes, we were the no. 1 in the world, I’ve never enjoyed coaching more and I still got sacked. That’s the hardest thing.”
Andrew McDonald, Langer's former assistant coach, has since taken full-time responsibility for all three formats of the Australian men's team.
The team has had a successful Australian summer in the Test arena, beating West Indies and South Africa in two and three-match series respectively.