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In a big development in Australian cricket on Saturday, Justin Langer submitted his resignation to Cricket Australia. After almost 12 months of ruckus, the Kangaroos' head coach decided to step down from the role with immediate effect. After Langer's resignation, Cricket Australia has appointed Andrew McDonald to join the team on an interim basis.

Justin Langer's management company DSEG announced the news. "DSEG confirms that our client Justin Langer has this morning tendered his resignation as of the Australian men's cricket team," the statement said, as reported by ESPNcricinfo. "The resignation follows a meeting with Cricket Australia last evening. The resignation is effective immediately," it added.

Cricket Australia also issued a statement in the same regard and said that the board has accepted Langer's resignation. It also clarified that in the meeting with Justin Langer, the board offered him an extension but the latter turned it down. "Cricket Australia has accepted men’s team head coach Justin Langer's resignation, which was received today," a CA statement read. "Justin was offered a short-term extension to his current contract, which sadly he has opted not to accept.

"The contract extension offered to Justin was the result of a thorough review process that evaluated many factors including future requirements of the team and the upcoming extensive schedule of fixtures," the statement said.

Langer's style of conduct was in question

Justin Langer took over the head coach role of Australia's senior Men's team after the sandpaper gate saga. Ever since Langer took over the role, his style of conduct was always in question. There have been many reports which claimed that Langer had issues with a few players. The issue was first made public in The Test documentary in 2020, where Usman Khawaja told Langer players were "intimidated" and "walking on eggshells".

Also, at a camp in June last year. players had given 'confronting' feedback to Langer which he took head on as said by the white-ball captain Aaron Finch. However, the matter seemed to surface again in August when Finch, Tim Paine, and Pat Cummins met with CA's hierarchy to raise further concerns.

Nonetheless, even with controversies around his coaching style, Langer's 55.5 per cent win record in Test cricket is second only to John Buchanan among all Australia coaches. Under Langer, Australia retained the Ashes on England soil after 18 years in 2019 and then won it again this summer. Australia also won its first T20 World Cup under the former Australia opener.