Langer in heated argument with staffer over Bangladesh song video
Australian men’s coach Justin Langer and team manager Gavin Dovey became involved in heated exchanges with a Cricket Australia staffer about a video posted on CA channels of a jubilant Bangladesh team singing their team song after securing a series win against the tourists last week.
Dovey and Langer both took umbrage over a video added to the cricket.com.au website, commemorating Bangladesh’s first bilateral series victory over Australia after the Tigers took a 3-0 lead in the sides’ Twenty20 international series.
Australian coach Justin Langer.Credit:Getty Images
Sources close to the Australian team have confirmed that a member of CA’s digital team – who The Age and the Herald have chosen not to name to protect their privacy – was given a stern talking-to about the contents of the video.
The confrontations, which occurred in the team hotel following the series-clinching third game, were separate but took place in quick succession.
Sources close to the team said the incidents were witnessed by at least a dozen people and left some players taken aback and with a sense of unease about what had transpired.
Dovey initially raised the matter with the staffer in a conversation that escalated when the staffer stood their ground over the issue. Dovey had argued that it was inappropriate for the Bangladesh team song to be posted on a CA-operated website.
Having been made aware of the initial incident between the staffer and Dovey, Langer took aim at the staffer.
Langer and the staffer eventually discussed the matter in a bid to find common ground.
Dovey responded publicly on Wednesday.
“A healthy team environment includes the ability to have honest and frank discussions, whether it be between players, support staff or others within the team environment, which was the case here,” Dovey said.
The Aussies struggled in Bangladesh.Credit:Getty
“There was a difference of opinion and we agreed to disagree on a particular matter. In hindsight, it was one of those instances which should have taken place in private. I take full ownership of that.”
Langer opted against making a comment.
CA had two digital media operators in Bangladesh, the only travelling journalists with the team on their two-legged tour of the West Indies and Bangladesh.
The coach, contracted until the middle of next year, came under scrutiny earlier this year when The Age and the Herald revealed dressing-room angst over the former Test opener’s mood swings within the pressurised environment of bio-secure bubbles. Formal end-of-season feedback confirmed that Langer needed to change his behaviour.
Langer also left some team members uneasy after a decidedly heated address to them following a narrow loss to England in the ODI series during their short tour of the UK late in 2020.
White-ball captain Aaron Finch said before the West Indies series that Langer had taken the feedback on board.
“No doubt it was quite confronting for him at the time but he took it head on and addressed that and it was great,” Finch said.
Langer was spotted on the broadcast of the fifth match of the tour – one in which Australia were bowled out for 62 to surrender a 4-1 series margin – in a passionate exchange with the Bangladesh coach Russell Domingo.
However, another source close to the situation suggested that Langer largely remained calm with players behind closed doors despite the team’s poor performance.
CA’s executive general manager of national teams, Ben Oliver, who Langer and Dovey report to, was also in Bangladesh for the tour, having flown into Dhaka after the conclusion of the Caribbean leg of the tour.
While Langer has served as head coach since 2018, Dovey, now formally known as “manager, Australian team high performance,” started as team manager in early 2011, and in 2019 was promoted into a high-performance position that transcended matters of logistics.
He and Langer struck up a friendship when the former Test opener worked as the team’s batting coach between 2009 and 2012 and they have remained close ever since.
Well-placed sources indicated Dovey had been working day and night to ensure the tours proceeded amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Players and staff have become increasingly worn down by months of bio-secure bubbles, a reality of international cricket in these times.
The Australians’ struggles across their T20 series in the West Indies and Bangladesh – admittedly with a severely depleted squad – has left them with huge work to find form ahead of the T20 World Cup later this year in the UAE.
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