Justin Langer seems like a decent bloke, and everyone deserves a fair chance.

I suppose he was always going to come out and offer his support to Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft, but it was his defence of David Warner in his first press conference as Ozzie cricket coach that ruffled some feathers.

Langer called the 31-year-old serial offender “a really good young bloke” who made a mistake, and said he loves the way Warner plays the game.

OK then – you can read all about that here.

Off the back of that conference, many started casting an eye back to Langer’s playing days. The opener racked up a whopping 28 000+ first-class runs, and was part of the most successful test team of all time, but an incident from back in 2004 has brought his character into question.

During a test match against Sri Lanka in Colombo, Langer walked past the stumps and flicked the batsman’s bails off, which then led to the Australians appealing for a hit wicket dismissal.

There’s a whole bunch of confusion, but if you want the money shot skip ahead to the three-minute mark and you’ll see the incident replayed in all its glory:

So it’s one thing to do it, but it’s another thing to lodge a genuine appeal with the umpires.

That other thing is called cheating.

According to Sport24:

Despite damning television evidence, Langer insisted that he did not intentionally flick off the bail.

ICC match referee Chris Broad afterwards accepted Langer’s explanation and cleared the player of any wrongdoing.

Sure, no, good bloke.

Now to be quite honest, I have nothing against cricketers who don’t walk. King Kallis wouldn’t dream of it, and back in the day batsmen were on the receiving end of many a howler, so if you nicked one to the ‘keeper and made the umpire give you out I have no qualms.

You can call it cheating if you want, but it’s pretty much part and parcel of the game these days.

If you nick it to slip, though…

The biggest fault there lies with the umpire, who has had a shocker, but let’s fast forward to 2013.

Stuart Broad also nicked one to slip and didn’t walk during an Ashes match, and before he touched down in Australia for the following series the then Ozzie coach Darren Lehmann made it clear that he should be sent back home in tears.

From 40 seconds below:

Pot paging kettle – come in.

So glad to see the back of this twat, because he embodied so much of what is wrong with that team’s culture at present.

The game of cricket is better off with a strong, competitive Ozzie unit in it, but I’ll be happy for them to have a microscope placed over their on-field antics for years to come.

You reckon that Mitchell Starc reverse swing might disappear?

[source:sport24]