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BY REX CLEMENTINE How much a regret is that in your career? lose, but it was a good thing, it made us hun- them. We had played for a long time. I Waugh. Ponting, Hayden, Gilchrist and Langer: I would have loved to play more grier, stronger and better. played with since we were 18 some of the all time greats in one side. ne of the key ingredients for the suc- One-Day Internationals. But it’s a great era. Question: What prompted you to retire at the Academy.It’s the same with Most teams have one great player, some cess of the Australian cricket teams A lot of good players didn’t play much Test in 2007? McGrath. It was a nice way to finish and I teams maybe two. But we had six great Ocaptained by and Ricky or ODI cricket at all. Of course, having Langer: What I had started to realize, the have got amazing memories of that last players and then we had some very good Ponting in the last decade was the success- played a lot of one-day cricket for Western whole team went through it, from the age of series. I was honoured to finish with those players like myself, , Brett ful opening combination of , Middlesex and Somerset, I would 34 there was always discussion in the media two great players. Lee and others. Now that we have started and Matthew Hayden. The duo were so pro- have loved the opportunity.The hardest about my position in the team. It was an age Question: The current Australian side losing, people are calling us rubbish. I told lific in their making that apart from thing for me was leaving my team-mates, thing you know. The decision was two fold has gone through several setbacks. Do you them we can’t have both ways. The impor- breaking so many records established by who were like my brothers. When I was really at that time. There was not going to expect the current team to reach the heights tant thing is to be patient with this team. Greenidge and Haynes, they challenged playing , I was the guy to leave be a Test Match for 11 months and I was 37 of the formidable Australian sides of the The determination is there. We are getting them to the position of the greatest opening all the time. I didn’t like leaving my broth- then. Leading up to that Ashes series I got last decade? it from the media and we are getting it combination in Test cricket. ers all the time. 340 or something for Somerset, so I was bat- Langer: This is a different team. Of from the public, that’s okay.The expecta- Cricket isn’t the only area Langer has Question: We have heard about your ting as good as ever. But there was still talk, course it could happen. But the reality is tions are very high. But in any team, you excelled. While he has a black belt in taek- passion for martial arts and boxing. Does a mainly because of my age, not because of that this is a different time and a different take six players out of a team and it hap- wondo, his passion for boxing is huge and sport like boxing help your cricket? my form or my partnership with Matthew era and we have got to be very patient. pens. You take Murali out of the Sri Langer calls cricket and boxing a lot similar. Langer: Boxing is great for your physi- Hayden. I thought I don’t want to wait for When we played, people used to say that Lankan team and they are not the same Despite a strike rater better than Damien cal fitness. Boxing is very similar to , another 11 months, I will be making hun- this is not good for world cricket. It’s been team. You take Sangakkara or Martyn and in Test cricket because it’s about footwork and technique dred after hundred for Somerset and too easy; we want to see tight games. I Jayawardene from this team and it’s going and a strike rate of 88 in domestic one-day and it’s about facing your opponents and Western Australia, but people were still used to tell them; be very careful of what to be hard. You can have the best system cricket, Langer played only eight ODIs. His facing your own fears. In the boxing ring going to question my spot in the team. you guys are saying here. This is once in a and coaches in the team, but if you don’t much hyped up 100th Test Match ended in there’s no way to hide. You can’t run away I remember sitting in the dressing room lifetime cricket team. We had guys like have the best players, it’s very hard to win disaster when a Makhaya Ntini bouncer or you are a coward. When you are batting at the MCG after we went 4-0 up. Sitting Warne, McGrath, Steve Waugh and Mark every game.

gave him a head cut and concussion before you can’t run away,if you do, you are a cow- next to my great friend Matthew Hayden in he had opened his account and was rushed ard. If you don’t concentrate in a boxing the change room and I remember he was so to the hospital. ring you get knocked out. You have to con- determined to get back into the one-day Langer was opening batting with Hayden centrate while batting and if you don’t you team. Taking a boxing cliché, he had an eye when Australia toured Sri Lanka in 2004 get knocked out. So they are similar. Martial of a tiger you know. He was so deter- and he struggled without scoring a half-cen- arts and boxing teach you about discipline mined. He was training hard and he tury in the first five innings, but redeemed and respect for your opponents and for wanted to get back into the one-day himself in the last innings where he made a yourself. Those things are very important if side so desperately.I looked at him and match winning 166 at the SSC. you want to be a good performer. thought; look I have been training, I Langer is the Batting Coach of the Question: Your hundredth Test obvious- did everything, absolutely everything Australian cricket team currently touring ly was a dramatic one. You were taken to to be ready for that Ashes series and I Sri Lanka and in an exclusive interview the hospital after being hit on the head. was wondering, what’s next for me. What’s with The Island, spoke on his career and After missing the entire game, you said you going to give me that fuel and fire that the future of Australian cricket. would bat if there was a need against strong Mathew Hayden has got and the younger Langer retired in 2007 from Test cricket medical advice. Talk us about that? players have got? I thought it was a great with other Australian greats such as Shane Langer: I was playing with my brothers. time to do it. In hindsight, I have four Warne and Glen McGrath after completing I knew I would regret it forever if we need- daughters; it’s ironic because I am now a 5-0 Ashes whitewash and here he explains ed 15 runs to win and if I didn’t go out to back on the road with the Australian team, the reasons to quit. bat. It may have been not the right decision, I knew my daughters were a big thing I He also calls Muttiah Muralitharan as but I knew I would regret it for the rest of was missing on. The best thing about it is the greatest bowler he has faced, ahead of my life if I didn’t do it. So that was the case. that not many people get to finish with and explains why his SSC Luckily Michael Kasprowicz and Brett got a fairytale. Look at Simon hundred in 2004 is so special. the winning runs for us. (Australia won the Katich recently,but I finished Here are the excerpts. Test by two with Langer to come in after a 5-0 whitewash against Question: Tell us about the Test series as last man). at the SCG with here in 2004. You struggled in five innings Question: Obviously things didn’t go too my best mates and I was before making a hundred in your final well for the team in 2005 where you lost the very lucky. appearance. What are your memories of Ashes after years of complete domination. Question: At which point that series? Personally it was a good series for you, but during that Ashes campaign Langer: Murali was very hard to face not many would have expected Australia to did you make up your mind? like a lot of people found out. Murali is the lose on that occasion given the Langer: I literally made best bowler I ever faced. He gave me more side you had. What went wrong? it at the MCG, the night of sleepless nights than Wasim Akram or Langer: It was amazing that we lost that the fourth Test victory.Then Shoaib Akthar. The fast bowlers could have series. But having said that it was great for we had a couple of days off. The hurt me, but Murali gave me more sleepless international cricket. It was good for our hardest thing was telling my nights. More nightmares than any other fast team too. We were winning all the time. It father. He happened to be at bowler in the world. Murali was the best was like you know a little kick in the back Melbourne to see the game. I had coffee bowler I ever faced. I say it everywhere. side. Maybe we were getting a bit compla- with my dad the next morning. He was actu- Wasim Akram was the hardest fast bowler cent; maybe we were getting it a bit too easy. ally going to tell me that it was the best time to face, but overall, Murali was the hardest But look at what happened afterwards. We to retire. It was very hard for me to tell him. bowler to face for me as a left-handed bats- won every Test Match since and we beat But he was thinking the same thing so it man. That’s the reason I had a hard time in England 5-0. That put some fire back in our wasn’t that bad. Sri Lanka. That hundred at SSC is one of bellies. I have said often that that 2007 Question: The retirements of Warne my favourite innings because I got a hun- series, England could have got , and McGrath overshadowed yours? How did dred against Murali. For me it was like con- Mike Gatting, David Gower and everyone, you deal with that? quering the dragon. He was like a dragon to but still we would have won. We were ready. Langer: That’s okay.I must say that I me. A great team had been disappointing in 2005 was a bit nervous as well to retire with Question: Despite all your achievements and we have got back to get where we want- them on the same day because they were in Test cricket, you just played eight ODIs. ed to be. So it was a disappointing thing to legends of the game. But I spoke to both of Justin Langer

BY JOHN LEICESTER The IAAF wasn’t always this intoler- effort and money should go down the “Come on. Usain has been doing this ant. Until 2003, the rule was that every drain? for many years. You know how he is,” he Jamaica’s DAEGU, South Korea (AP) — Usain runner got a second chance. The draw- “We came along way to see him run,” said. “The sad thing is he was looking so Bolt showed he is human. His sport backs were multiple false starts that Bolt’s dad, Wellesley, who really doesn’t good through the rounds and we were reacts after showed its rules are not. deflated races before they’d begun and like long flights, told me. “I don’t agree very confident that he was going to per- being disquali- The zero-tolerance false start regula- unhappy television broadcasters whose with the rules, but they lay down the rule form very, very well.” fied due to a tion that threw the world’s fastest man out schedules were thrown off-kilter by and what can I say?” To his credit, Bolt climbed right back false start in of the banner 100-meter sprint that he repeated delays as competitors began over. It might be tempting, although proba- on the horse that bucked him. From the the Men’s owns isn’t just silly, it’s cruel. So that was tightened to allow just one bly wrong, to think that Bolt perhaps stadium where Jamaican teammate 100m final at Nerves. Tension. Pumping adrenaline. false start per race in sprint events. But made the error of not taking the final seri- Yohan Blake won the title that Bolt the World The rule makes no allowance for those Athletics human reactions to stress, for honest mis- Championship takes. Jump the starter’s gun, just once, s in Daegu, and you’re out. South Korea, Bolt learned that to his cost Sunday on Bolt is human, his sport’s rules are not Sunday, Aug. one of the biggest stages of them all, the 28, 2011. (AP world championships, and now his sport Photo/Kin will have to pay the bill. Disqualifying its that, too, had drawbacks: sluggish starters ously enough. He cruised through two ear- vacated, he walked to a nearby warmup Cheung) biggest name, a runner so mesmerizing were suspected of deliberately jumping lier rounds without reaching top gear. His track and, cutting a solitary figure in the for fans that he can command appearance the gun, knowing that that might make top rivals, Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell, dark, practiced sprinting alone from a fees of $300,000 per race — talk about ath- the field more cautious and likely to get were absent, injured. He seemed a sure bet standing start. letics shooting itself in the foot. away more slowly on the restart, because to retain the 100 title he won in 2009 in a If there must be a silver lining, it “Its a crazy rule,” said Olivia Grange, the next runner to go too early would be world record 9.58 seconds. could be that Bolt is now more unlikely the minister for sport from Bolt’s native disqualified. Bolt, as he always does, clowned around than ever to repeat his error next year at Jamaica who watched, along with every- “It was a lot of tricks, a lot of manipu- before Sunday’s start, preening his new the London Olympics or later this week one else at the Daegu Stadium, in utter lation,” Bubka said. “To create additional goatee beard, pointing to his family and when he races in his favorite event, the disbelief. “The message has been sent that psychological pressure.” friends in the crowd in their canary yel- 200, where he also holds the world they need to revisit this ruling,” she told So, in January 2010, the IAAF went low Jamaica shirts. But that’s just what record. me. overboard, tightening the rule to its cur- Bolt does. His super-cool, fun-loving “He’ll recover. He’s the type of person One of the track and field’s senior lead- rent extreme. Support was far from unani- demeanor of a champion who has not who doesn’t give up” his dad said. “He’ll ers, Sergei Bubka, agreed that his federa- mous: IAAF members voted 97-55 in favor. grown too big for his boots is part of his learn from the mistake.” tion needs to take another look. He told “If we did some mistake, we should attraction. Now, the IAAF must, too. Otherwise, me he thought “My God! My God!” when come back,” Bubka said. “I’m very open, if Which doesn’t mean that Bolt didn’t imagine if there’s a repeat at the Bolt sprang out of his blocks a fraction of necessary, to discuss and look (at the rule). have his head on straight when he Olympics when the entire world will be a second too early. I think in any case, what has happened (in crouched into the blocks — although we watching. For track and field, what could “This is really ridiculous. I don’t know Daegu), it brings us to discussion, to look can’t be sure because he wouldn’t talk be worse? Perhaps only Bolt testing posi- what to say,” the IAAF vice president said. ... is it right or not?” afterward, barking “Don’t! Don’t!” at a tive for something could do more to hurt As a former pole vaulter who still holds Answer, Mr. Bubka: It’s not. Athletes — reporter who had the gumption to pose a the sport for which he lays such golden the world record, he has firsthand knowl- although perhaps not always Bolt, who question to the fuming giant. eggs. edge of how the stress of competition can has so much talent that he doesn’t need to But his agent, Ricky Simms, noted “I’m just numb right now. It’s crazy. cause unexpected outcomes. work as hard as he could — sweat blood that Bolt rarely false starts and poo- People get a little nervy,” said his manag- “He’s always so perfect and suddenly ... and tears to reach world championships. pooed the idea that his runner may have er, Norman Peart. “That false-start rule, ,” he said of Bolt. And for one twitch too early, all that time, been guilty of overconfidence. it’s going to screw us all up.”