Ian Chappell sticks boot into Justin Langer once again over ‘legend’ status, not as good as Damian Martyn

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Having taken over the reigns of the Australian team as coach following the ball tampering scandal, Langer helped revive the team’s culture.

Under his tenure, Australia retained the Ashes in England for the first time since 2001, claimed the nation’s first T20 World Cup title and thrashed England 4-0 at home.

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But Langer, who has been known for his intensity, appeared to lose the dressing room as Australian players refused to call for him to be re-signed.

At the time, Australian greats, particularly those who played alongside Langer, slammed the current stars for not standing up for Langer, including Mitchell Johnson, who labelled current Test skipper Pat Cummins “gutless” and said the Baggy Green now “stands for selfishness”.

But Chappell told WWOS’ Outside The Rope that he had a problem with the past players calling Langer a “legend”.

“Why were they saying Langer was a legend? He wasn’t,” Chappell said.

“Langer was smart enough to retire on the same day that Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne retired, now they were really good cricketers. Justin Langer wasn’t in their category as far as I was concerned.

“Damien Martyn, in my opinion, was twice as good as Justin Langer.”

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A naturally gifted prodigy, Martyn played 67 Test matches, scoring 4406 runs at 46.37, including 13 centuries, while the gritty Langer tallied 7696 runs at an average if 45.27 including 23 centuries in 105 Tests. He also formed a legendary opening partnership alongside Matthew Hayden, the fourth highest aggregate partnership in Test cricket history.

For the record, Chappell scored 5345 runs at 42.42 in 75 Test matches, including 14 centuries.

Beyond The Rope host Malcolm Conn, who was the former Australian team communications manager, said Langer’s style of coaching often bumped people the wrong way.

“If you take the emotion out of it … there had been a problem there for some time,” Chappell added.

“I experienced it first-hand in 2019 (when) I was working for Cricket Australia and I stood in as a media manager for the World Cup and the Ashes.

“I learned very quickly to stay out of Justin Langer’s way because you weren’t sure whether you were going to get an answer or an explosion.

“So I can completely understand where the players were coming from and I thought it showed a lack of leadership from the board and the administration to let things fester to the point where the players had to wear a decision which the board really should’ve made.”

It’s not the first time Chappell had spoken out on calling Langer a “legend”.

After Langer’s resignation, Chappell questioned whether Australia even needed a coach in 2022 while still taking a swipe at Cricket Australia for the way the governing body acted.

Speaking on 3AW at the time, Chappell said: “If you think the whole thing has been turned around, the way Australia play cricket, by the coach, then you’re deluded.”

He even questioned those who defended Langer as a “legend”, saying his former teammates were looking through rose coloured glasses.

“Obviously, if you played with a player back in your time, then you can get pretty close to those guys and I think that’s where a lot of this misinformation is coming from,” Chappell said.

“Players are rating Langer much higher than I rated him as a player for starters but a lot of those comments are coming from blokes who played with him, liked him as a person, but they’re not having to perform under his coaching.”