Former England cricket captain Michael Vaughan has revealed that a conversation overheard in a pub by British cricket journalists may have helped put the wheels in motion for Justin Langer’s sacking.
Vaughan said on Fox Sports’ Follow-On podcast that Test captain Pat Cummins and now-interim coach Andrew McDonald were discussing potential replacements for Langer during the Ashes series.
He said that the pair were oblivious to the fact that English journalists Ali Martin from The Guardian and Nick Hoult from The Telegraph were sitting nearby.
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“I know from close contacts in the England journalistic world that Pat Cummins … and Andrew McDonald were caught having conversations in a pub in Hobart. That conversation was heard by two or three British journalists,” Vaughan said.
“My advice to Pat Cummins would be, if you’re going to have strong conversations about the potential removal of your Australian cricket coach, who was in position at the time, don’t do it at a pub. Do not do it in a public domain where you may get heard.”
Both later published stories on the Australian team’s preferred Langer replacements.
“The one piece of advice I’d give him is that when you’re an Australian cricket captain, you’re always under watch,” Vaughan said.
“They can deny it as much as they want, but the two or three journalists that I know of who were there were in the pub listening. When you’re an international captain, just be careful where you have that conversation.”
Vaughan also said that “it was quite clear” that both men wanted Langer gone, and that those stories served as the catalyst for everything that has since happened.
“That’s how all these stories started,” he said.
Vaughan has repeatedly expressed his bewilderment about Langer’s sacking, and has pushed for him to become the new England coach, should he want the job.
“I do not see anyone else better suited than Langer to crack heads together and bring some tough management to a group of England players who have become too cosy recently,” he wrote in his Telegraph column two weeks’ ago.
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