“A healthy team environment includes the ability to have honest and frank discussions,whether it be between players,support staff or others within the team environment,which was the case here,” Dovey said.
“There was a difference of opinion and we agreed to disagree on a particular matter. In hindsight,it was one of those instances which should have taken place in private. I take full ownership of that.”
Langer opted against making a comment.
CA had two digital media operators in Bangladesh,the only travelling journalists with the team on their two-legged tour of the West Indies and Bangladesh.
The coach,contracted until the middle of next year,came under scrutiny earlier this year whenThe Age and theHerald revealed dressing-room angst over the former Test opener’s mood swings within the pressurised environment of bio-secure bubbles.Formal end-of-season feedback confirmed that Langer needed to change his behaviour.
Langer also left some team members uneasy after a decidedly heated address to them following a narrow loss to England in the ODI series during their short tour of the UK late in 2020.
White-ball captain Aaron Finch said before the West Indies series that Langer had taken the feedback on board.
“No doubt it was quite confronting for him at the time but he took it head on and addressed that and it was great,” Finch said.
Langer was spotted on the broadcast of the fifth match of the tour – one in which Australia werebowled out for 62 to surrender a 4-1 series margin – in a passionate exchange with the Bangladesh coach Russell Domingo.
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CA’s executive general manager of national teams,Ben Oliver,who Langer and Dovey report to,was also in Bangladesh for the tour,having flown into Dhaka after the conclusion of the Caribbean leg of the tour.
While Langer has served as head coach since 2018,Dovey,now formally known as “manager,Australian team high performance,” started as team manager in early 2011,and in 2019 was promoted into a high-performance position that transcended matters of logistics.
He and Langer struck up a friendship when the former Test opener worked as the team’s batting coach between 2009 and 2012 and they have remained close ever since.
Well-placed sources indicated Dovey had been working day and night to ensure the tours proceeded amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Players and staff have become increasingly worn down by months of bio-secure bubbles,a reality of international cricket in these times.