Australia coach Tim Nielsen said he felt he'd broken Justin Langer's trust after the former Test opening batsman's damning indictment of English cricket was leaked to the British media this month.
Australia coach Tim Nielsen said he felt he'd broken Justin Langer's trust after the former Test opening batsman's damning indictment of English cricket was leaked to the British media this month.
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Langer, now the captain of English county Somerset, sent Nielsen an e-mail before the start of the Ashes series in which he accused English cricketers of being "lazy" and "flat".
The dossier was sent round the squad before the first Test in Cardiff last month and was subsequently published on August 8.
Nielsen, speaking to reporters at the Oval on Monday, where the final Ashes Test starts on Thursday with the series all square at 1-1, said: "The thing I was most disappointed in was that it had an immediate effect on my relationship with Justin.
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| Justin Langer |
"I felt like I had broken his trust with that information getting out."
And that for Nielsen was the key issue.
"It's not so much the information. Every team, every player has dossiers on them and on other players and their own personal ideas," he added.
And he added the fact Australia had an experienced captain in Ricky Ponting meant they were not exactly devoid of knowledge regarding English players.
"You've got to remember we've got a guy called Ponting who'd played against a few of these English players both in England and Australia in the past.
"We didn't come here with no experience or no understanding of how they would go about it.
"The biggest issue for me was the personal issue I had to deal with Justin. I felt like I had broken his trust. The rest of it, I'm sure they (England) are saying the same thing about some of our players or probably even me. That's the game."
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