Pat Cummins denies Justin Langer’s ‘cowards’ comment in the Australian team

Cummins breaks his silence on the Langer story as the first home Test since his ouster approaches.

Australian skipper Pat Cummins has spoken out about the situation involving former coach Justin Langer before of the first home Test since he was fired.

In the aftermath of the team’s great Ashes campaign and Twenty20 World Cup title, Langer made some inflammatory remarks about cowards in the team’s cocoon.

Langer has now disputed that his comments were intended at players and denied that there was any animosity toward the present team.

But, reading between the lines, he sounded dissatisfied with how things turned out after he was forced to resign after not being offered a contract renewal.

On Tuesday, 24 hours before the first Test, Cummins responded to the coward charges.

“There’s no cowards in an Australian cricket team, not ever,” Cummins told reporters on Tuesday.

“I’d probably never disclose private conversations. I think it’s disappointing sometimes the focus gets drawn to off-field issues,”

Player power was considered to have played a big part in Langer’s exit, but Cummins revealed on SEN radio that there was no bad blood and that he was looking forward to seeing Langer, who is working with Channel 7, in and around the first Test in Perth.

“There’s always chat at the start of the summer between how different interviews will work, so yea we will sort it out,” Cummins said on SEN radio.

“There will be no issues, the players are looking forward to seeing JL (Justin Langer), some of the ex-players we grew up idolising these guys.

“There won’t be any issues from that front.”