Feeling the strain:Australian coach Justin Langer speaking at the media conference in Sydney where he got 'two out of 10 grumpy'.Credit:AAP
With the pressure intensifying as Virat Kohli’s India went 2-1 ahead in the Test series last December and the spectre of the South Africa scandal refusing to go away withSmith and Cameron Bancroft’s Boxing Day Test interviews,Langer admitted at the time he felt “like a director of a soap opera”.
With the Ashes beginning at Edgbaston on Thursday,he has now given a further insight into the toll his first season in the job took on him and his family.
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"We got to day three or day four of the last Test in Sydney and my family had been over for Boxing Day and for the SCG Test match,"Langer told ESPNcricinfo."I've known my wife[Sue] since I was 14 years old,so she knows everything about me,and they were leaving. I had to get in the team car to go to the ground at 8.15am. They were leaving that day,and we were at breakfast at eight o'clock and my wife started crying at the breakfast table in front of my daughters.
"I said what's going on,I never see my wife cry. We know everything about each other. She said'I just don't like what's happening here,I don't like what it's doing to you,I don't like what it's doing to us,people are so mean,what people are saying about you and the team and Australian cricket'. That was a real eye-opener for me,that it was affecting my family."
'Truth's a beautiful thing':Langer says he didn't realise the impact the ball-tampering drama had been having on his family.Credit:AAP
Just days after the Sydney Test,Langer responded sharply to questions at a press conference about the treatment by selectors of all-rounder Glenn Maxwell,slamming as “careless whispers” claims he had been misled by selectors. “Are you certain that's what happened? Are you certain that's what happened?” Langer asked the reporter. “Sorry for getting grumpy. I don't like getting grumpy but there’s so many stories that go around about so much stuff. The truth is a beautiful thing.”