Justin Langer deserved better from Cricket Australia before resignation

For a team which was historically synonymous with Australia's values to be regarded as rule-breakers was a bitter blow to all those who identified with Australia as a sporting nation.

At an all-time low, Cricket Australia hit their break in case of emergency button and dialled Justin Langer to replace his former teammate and ex-Australian coach Darren Lehmann.

They knew what they wanted, it's why they barely considered holding any interviews.

Given the team had strayed so far from the values they were purported to uphold, Langer was the exact tonic that they needed to reset.

He lived, breathed and presumably dreamt about the values and culture which flowed through the successful cricket teams of Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting, coached by Geoff Marsh and John Buchanan.

For all his detractors might say, Langer instilled some life and pride back into a badge which been left in tatters when he took over.

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The results speak for themselves, a retained Ashes in England, a Twenty20 World Cup win, Australia at the top of the Test rankings and a Wisden Coach of the Year award to boot.

So that pesky word, culture, rather than results can only be what has driven cricket's rumbling cold war which ended in Langer's resignation four years after he took the job dreaming of a 10 year stay.

While in theory, Cricket Australia did try to keep Langer, the reality is they designed it to ensure he left.

After all those achievements, a six-month contract hardly constitutes a welcome back.

The silence was noticeable as the press came out for Langer. It is particular concerning that while Pat Cummins and Aaron Finch gave no ringing endorsement, Cricket Australia was hardly cheerleading for their man either.

There was no press conference to back Langer into the upcoming Twenty20 World Cup, there wasn't even the dreaded "full support of the board" offered to a man recently inducted to Australian cricket's hall of fame.

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Instead they opted to let things rumble on, as they tend to do at Jolimont, until Langer opted to hit the eject button.

Cricket Australia's entire approach to management has consisted of burrowing their heads in the sand and hoping when they rise, the tsunami has turned at a right angle.

It was barely six months ago that Tim Paine was forced to fall on his sword after a texting scandal while Cricket Australia watched from the sidelines as he broke down in tearful resignation.

The scandal that they knew about for four years but did nothing to get ahead of and then offered little public backing to those most affected.

"If you look back, it's been a really poor six months. I think of the way that Cricket Australia as a whole have handled some of the better people in Australian cricket, Justin Langer and Tim Paine, I think it's been almost embarrassing with the way they've handled those two cases," Cricket legend Ricky Ponting said regarding the situation.

In a few weeks or months, the cricket world will have moved on from Langer's situation.

His teammates, like Ponting, Matthew Hayden and Damien Martyn may have subsisted from being incredibly angry at the governing body.

There may even be a new coach in the chair given Australia has a busy schedule ahead of it this year.

There is even a suggestion that the new coach may have to take a less involved role given the success Australia had at the World Cup when Langer took a back seat.

A corpse would do the same and you wouldn't hire them.

But the real question is have we learnt anything?

For all the consternation over the actions that happened in Cape Town and to the celebration of team which valued whatever 'elite mateship' is afterwards, it would appear CA are back to business as usual.

The ball-tampering saga, as evidenced and highlighted by the Ethics Centre's 2018 review, was the product of an organisation which left a team culture unchecked and driven to the last degree to win

It should have been damning that the report described an organisation as transactional, unsupportive and arrogant and that 17 of the 24 recommendations directed at Cricket Australia from it related to changes in behaviours or ethics in players or directors.

It should have be damning that Cricket Australia did not offer a solution to Langer's frustrations so he had to do something on his own.

Instead, they watched and let it rumble on, until the man they hand-picked to instill some respectability into the team, was driven to the point of resignation.

They may have disagreed on his approach, intensity or player relationships and it is even understandable to an extent if they wanted a change to coincide with a better match for Pat Cummins.

However, it is inexcusable that Cricket Australia failed to be decisive when it would have best served everyone involved, instead of letting it fester away in the media.

There's been no management in it, in fact, they might be pioneering a new strain of management, anti-management.

It seems those that can do - do something- those that do nothing get a Christmas bonus at Cricket Australia.

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