Bailey dismisses claims that lack of support from senior players led to Langer's departure

Melbourne, Feb 8: Australia's chairman of selectors George Bailey has dismissed Justin Langer's claims that a lack of backing from senior players and support staff led to the former opener's departure as the national team head coach.

Langer resigned from the post on Saturday when he was only offered a six-month contract extension until October's T20 World Cup final, despite guiding Australia to victory at the T20 World Cup before overseeing a 4-0 drubbing of England in the Ashes. "I feel for him," Bailey told reporters on Tuesday.

"Absolutely no one deserves to have the saga that has been played out as publicly as it has been. Clearly he didn't get the length of contract extension offer that he was after so it hasn't been ideal, but I don't subscribe to the fact that it was individuals that were key to making the decision."

After Langer's resignation, some of his former teammates have come out in his support and have also criticised the current players, including newly-appointed Test skipper Pat Cummins. Langer was appointed in 2018 in the aftermath of a ball-tampering scandal in South Africa and Bailey praised the former Australia opener for the kind of work he has done and the results he has achieved with the team.

"(Langer) wanted the team to earn respect with Australians and he wanted to develop great cricketers and great people and I think he has absolutely done that," he said.

"The team have done that, JL has done that, the staff around the team have done that. The group, the individuals, all three teams are in a very different space where they are today to where they were four years ago. (Langer) absolutely has to take an enormous amount of credit for that and I hope he's immensely proud of it."

Meanwhile, former Australia pacer Jason Gillespie has said he is not interested in replacing Langer as the team's head coach. "I am not putting myself up for any jobs, I'm fully committed to South Australian cricket," Gillespie, a former Test team-mate of Langer, told reporters.

"I've got a lot of work to do here and I'm absolutely loving it."