‘Broke my heart’: Langer reveals cricket ‘killer’ that could end coaching career forever

Justin Langer says he may never coach again following his acrimonious exit from Cricket Australia.

The former Australia coach said that aspects of being in the top job “literally broke” his heart, while some scars may never heal.

Langer led Australia in the aftermath of the 2018 Cape Town ball-tampering scandal, but his intense management style and reported moodswings grated on the playing group.

Crisis talks in mid-2021 saw him take a backwards step and the results flowed with Australia winning the T20 World Cup that year, and the Ashes 4-0 over the summer.

But Langer was only offered a six-month contract renewal which he rejected, realising that the writing was on the wall at Jolimont.

Speaking to the Cricket Et Cetera podcast, Langer revealed that the experience might be enough to turn him off coaching forever.

“I don’t think I’ll coach again. No, I don’t think I’ll coach again,” said Langer, who was a highly-successful coach with Western Australia and the Perth Scorchers before taking the national job.

“The craziness is – and it’s really strange in cricket – if you think about a lot of the other codes, the best coaches are a lot older. It doesn’t make sense in cricket.

“I say I’m not going to coach again, but I reckon I’m 10 years off being the best coach I could be. I honestly reckon – because things don’t shock you, things don’t surprise you (the more experienced you get).”

Langer was sounded out to coach England after he was pushed aside by Australia, while the Daily Telegraph reports he could have led the Hobart Hurricanes this BBL season, but he wasn’t ready.

He was raw and emotional in the podcast with The Australian’s Peter Lalor and Gideon Haigh, telling the duo that the narrative around his exit was too hard to take..

“The hardest thing about my last 12 months, and I say it hand on heart, was there was this narrative that I hated the players or the players hated me back. That literally broke my heart,” Langer said.

“Everything I’ve done for literally the whole time – when I was in Western Australia coaching the Scorchers, when I was with Phil Hughes when I first started and with Steve Smith, I came up with them as kids (when I was) an assistant coach (was because I loved the players)

“Some of the players may not have liked my style. I am serious, I can be intense. But they know how much I loved them and they loved me back.

“I kept reading this narrative and it literally broke my heart.

“That’s why when you ask if I’ll be a better coach next time, for my family I am not sure I can go through that again.”

Langer also insisted that he still has “very special relationships” with players from the Australian group.

He added: “My kids love me unconditionally. As a coach sometimes you have to do that. You’ve got to pull them into line. You have to have the bigger picture in mind.

“Some people aren’t going to like that and because they’re not your kids they’re going to say ‘well he’s disposable’. “That’s fine. That’s life. But that’s the killer.”