Australia's Test captain Pat Cummins replies to Justin Langer's 'coward' claims

KARACHI: Australia's Test skipper Pat Cummins hit back at former head coach Justin Langer after he said the men's national side contains cowards.

Langer drew curtains on his four-year stint with Australia after being offered a six-month contract following winning the T20 World Cup 2021 and the Ashes 2021-22.

In an interview with BackChat Podcast last week, Langer rekindled old wounds about his resignation from Cricket Australia (CA) by calling out "anonymous" team members as "cowards" for criticising his aggressive coaching style.

However, Cummins fired back at the former cricketer and said the comments have not affected his team.

"There's no cowards in an Australian cricket team, not ever," he told reporters ahead of the two-match Test series against West Indies.

"I think it's disappointing sometimes the focus gets drawn to off-field issues, but it hasn't really affected our team. I think there's no ill will to what he was trying to do, and he clarified (his comments) afterwards.

"I think he had a think about it and clarified it, so thank him for that. But we're really proud of the last 12 months, how we've fronted up, the way we've played, the way we've conducted ourselves. Players can certainly hold their heads high."

Cummins was appointed as Australia Test captain in November 2021 after a sexting scandal led Tim Paine to quit and worked with Langer till his resignation in February.

It must be noted here that Cummins was named as Australia's ODI skipper following the retirement of Aaron Finch from the 50-over format in October 2022.