BOOF DANGER

AUSTRALIAN cricket coach Darren Lehmann appears doomed in the position and will either resign, or be sacked, according to reports. Cricket Australia CEO James Sutherland flew in to South Africa late yesterday in the wake of the ball-tampering scandal.

DARREN Lehmann was welcomed back into the cricket fold after a five-match ban for a racist taunt in 2003, but the cheating scandal in South Africa could be the end for good.

The Australian cricket team will take a new route back towards becoming the upstanding world sport citizens the team has long sought to be when Justin Langer replaces Lehmann in charge.

Don’t doubt that Langer is tough and uncompromising and boasts the stern stuff required to run a team at the top of a world sport.

But also don’t doubt that his passion for winning does not bring with it the “win at all costs” mentality that plagued Lehmann’s time in charge and turned Australia’s own fans against the national side.

Lehmann was always revered as the blokey man in charge more comfortable at the bar talking through the day’s play than pouring through data and developing the right processes for success.

But that next door neighbour persona, his nickname was “Boof”, brought with it some boorish offerings not necessarily the stuff of a man given the job of moulding the game’s senior statesmen.

Before the Ashes in 2013 he told a radio station he hoped English bowler Stuart Broad was attacked by local fans and that he “cries and goes home”. He was calling for the same sort of backwater crowd behaviour that only last weekend the coach declared was “not on” before the third Test in Cape Town.

“It has been disgraceful. You are talking about abuse of players and their families. It’s not on anywhere in the world,” he said angrily.

This, the same man suspended for five-matches in 2003 after referring to Sri Lankan players as “black c----”, an offence that nearly cost him a life ban. Instead, all was forgiven, he played out his career, then embarked on a successful coaching one.

With “Boof” gone, maybe the boofhead behaviour of the Australian players, whose vulgar onfield activities have been indulged, even encouraged, for far too long, will follow.