Former Australian opener Matthew Hayden
on Saturday slammed the national team players and for not publicly backing former
head coach Justin Langer, who resigned from the position earlier this
morning.

Hayden, who formed a formidable
opening pair with Langer in their hay days, blamed the players for rumours
about their apparent dissatisfaction with his partner’s coaching style.

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“If he was waiting for the
current Australian cricket team to be presenting a face of care, I dare say
they won’t be and that’s, to me, the real sadness around this,” a teary Hayden
was quoted as saying by ABC.

Langer stepped down from the role after a marathon meeting with Cricket Australia (CA) on Friday, after which the two parties could not agree to on terms for a new contract. In a statement, CA said they offered Langer a short-term contract extension, which the 51-year-old “sadly” opted not to accept.  

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They said that the contract extension was the result of a “thorough review process that evaluated many factors including future requirements of the team and the upcoming extensive schedule of fixtures”.

Australian skipper Pat Cummins was one of the players who met CA last year and raised concerns about Langer’s coaching style, according to ABC. In an interview last week, he said it was up to governing body to handle the evaluation process as he did not directly support Langer. 

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Hayden said he did not agree with Cummins’ interpretation of the situation.  

“This was not a healthy process,”
Hayden said. 

“This (Langer) was a bloke that won the Ashes, stayed back
basically in Melbourne for the entire time while this dragged on for a month …
the whole thing just reeks of being orchestrated from basically the moment all
of this garbage started coming out in the middle of last year.”

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Hayden also blamed CA for allowing rumours about players’ dissatisfaction with Langer getting leaked. “It is such a leaking boat, this so-called high-performance culture within cricket. There is no inner sanctum anymore.”

He also said CA did not show any respect to Langer for how he managed the team following the ball-tampering scandal that rocked Australian cricket in 2018.