Langer’s fate rests on power of players

AUSTRALIAN cricket powerbrokers are mulling over this question: have their players done enough to earn the right to choose their coach?

Not all of them agree the answer is “yes” but trying to resist player sentiment is like trying to hold back a rising tide which is why the player push to have Trevor Bayliss replace Justin Langer is so significant.

Talk about men of contrasts and fire and ice … but more on that later.

The administrators will tell us this is very much a board decision but the truth is the players are likely to get the man they want.

Out of respect to Langer, Australia should sort out his future as soon as the final Ashes Test is over.

The strong suspicion is that the wounds of a player revolt against Langer last year have never properly healed and that the fifth Ashes Test could be his last on Australian soil or even his last of all.

Langer is contracted until June so he still has some whiteball games and a three-Test tour of Pakistan ahead – but all that is negotiable if he is not recontracted.

These are extraordinary times. Since the player revolt, Langer-coached Australian teams have lost just one game – a T20 World Cup match against England – and Australia has stormed its way to T20 and Ashes glory.

Many coaches with that recent record would be walking into their boss’s office, putting their feet on the table and arguing for a pay rise.

But in cricket and in sport, once cracks appear between a coach and his players, they rarely properly heal.

When Australia’s culture fell away with sandpapergate, Australia recruited Langer as a hard-nosed agent of change. He did his job, but if Bayliss gets the role it will be another contrast because he is renowned for his steady temperament and cool disposition.

Cricket still struggles to acknowledge the full worth of coaches. There is no Australian coaching icon like say Jack Gibson in rugby league or Norm Smith in the AFL.