Former Australia cricketer Simon O’Donnell has urged Justin Langer to not air his dirty laundry in public after an explosive interview about his tenure as national coach this week.
In the interview with Code Sports, Langer called out Test captain Pat Cummins’ role in his exit and the CA board, as well as those he called “cowards” for leaking against him.
The interview prompted a stern response from CA chief Nick Hockley who said there were “a number of inaccuracies” in Langer’s interview.
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Now O’Donnell has weighed in on the simmering feud between Langer and the players, which has resurfaced since Australia’s poor performance at the T20 World Cup.
The former player and commentator said it was disappointing that Langer hasn’t simply “waved goodbye and enjoyed all he’s achieved.”
“That’s the ugly side of this. He’s got to be really careful not to lose the room,” he said on SEN Breakfast.
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“The key ingredient, still at the end of the day, is the game is bigger than the individual. There’s a lot of people that have left Australian cricket over the journey and other sports disgruntled. It doesn’t mean you just roll it back out there and have your say.
“I’d like him to stop and if he needs to do anything about it, I think he needs to go through other channels other than just letting fly on podcasts or news services et cetera.”
O’Donnell added that he “loves” Langer and what he did for Australia, but believes he’ll continue to do more harm than good with the more he publicly speaks about his exit.
“He can be free to speak, I’m not saying he shouldn’t speak, that’s up to him,” he added.
“But I think he loses relationships hand over fist the more he speaks about it the longer the period is that he’s gone.
“You can’t just carry these grudges forever. You’ve got to move on and it’s taking him a while to move on.”
