FORMER Australian cricketer Simon O\u2019Donnell has urged Justin Langer to be careful with the way he speaks about his tenure as head coach of the national team.<\/p>\n
Langer criticised captain Pat Cummins and others around the Australian team on former AFL player Will Schofield\u2019s Backchat Podcast which created plenty of headlines.<\/p>\n
He spoke of the time leading up to his departure as Australia coach and his opinion of how it all fell apart.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spoke to Pat Cummins. He said to me about five times, \u2018This might be brutally honest\u2019,\u201d Langer said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Pat, there is nothing brutal about your feedback. What is brutal is I\u2019m hearing it behind my back through the media or through sources\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one\u2019s telling me. Tell me.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople say that I’m very intense, but they’re mistaking intensity with honesty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Langer added, \u201cI\u2019ve never said this publicly, the hardest thing for me of it all was I got the feedback.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I did something about it, we won the T20 World Cup, we won the Ashes, we were the number one in the world, I\u2019ve never enjoyed coaching more and I still got sacked.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the hardest thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Langer\u2019s honesty has since been both criticised and praised.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Donnell believes the former opening batsman is somewhat tarnishing his legacy with the way he is handling the situation by crying foul.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately he hasn\u2019t ridden off into the sunset, waved goodbye and enjoyed all he\u2019s achieved,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said on SEN Breakfast<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the ugly side of this. He\u2019s got to be really careful not to lose the room.<\/p>\n \u201cThe key ingredient, still at the end of the day, is the game is bigger than the individual. There\u2019s a lot of people that have left Australian cricket over the journey and other sports disgruntled. It doesn\u2019t mean you just roll it back out there and have your say.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d 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 etcetera.\u201d<\/p>\n O\u2019Donnell acknowledges that Langer is free to have his say, but he is worried that his friendships will be impacted by his passionate responses.<\/p>\n He believes it is time to let go of the grudge towards Cricket Australia.<\/p>\n \u201cHe can be free to speak, I\u2019m not saying he shouldn\u2019t speak, that\u2019s up to him,\u201d O\u2019Donnell said.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I think he loses relationships hand over fist the more he speaks about it the longer the period is that he\u2019s gone.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t just carry these grudges forever. You\u2019ve got to move on and it\u2019s taking him a while to move on.<\/p>\n \u201cI love Justin Langer, I love what he did for Australian cricket, but Justin wasn\u2019t sacked. Justin was offered a six-month extension to his contract which he didn\u2019t agree with.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the end of the day, it came down to Justin saying, \u2018Hey, I want longer than that\u2019, and Cricket Australia said, \u2018No, we think that\u2019s the right period of time\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t \u2018you\u2019re out\u2019. Let\u2019s get it straight, Cricket Australia did say your tenure can continue, but he chose not to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n