Australian Darren Lehmann has made a shocking announcement of his resignations ahead of the fourth and the final Test against South Africa in Johannesburg. After watching the emotional and heartfelt press conferences of Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft on Thursday, Lehmann said that the Australian team now deserves a new head coach.
On Wednesday, the 48-year-old was cleared of any wrongdoing in the ball-tampering fiasco and as per the latest reports, the fourth Test at the Wanderers will be his last Test in charge. Addressing the media ahead of the final Test, Darren said, “Saying goodbye to the players was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to do.”
Also read: Lehmann finally speaks out about the ball-tampering incident
When asked his proudest achievement as the head coach, Lehman replied, “I would say the way we dealt with Philip Hughes’s passing. We’re only playing a game.”
BREAKING: Darren Lehmann announces this will be his last Test as he is stepping down from his role as head coach pic.twitter.com/VZEKbS6ZZc
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) March 29, 2018
Talking about his retirement further, Darren said, “This will be my last Test as head coach of the Australian cricket team as I am stepping down. After seeing events in the media today with Steven Smith and Cameron Bancroft, the feeling is that Australian cricket needs to move forward and it is the right thing to do. I really feel for Steve as I saw him crying in front of the media and all the players are really hurting. As I have stated before, I had no prior knowledge of the incident and don’t condone what happened before.”
Also read: Darren Lehmann Gets Green Signal
Lehmann was appointed as the head coach of the Australian team just after a couple of weeks after the 2013 Ashes series in England after CA sacked South African Mickey Arthur, who masterminded the ‘homework-gate’ case in India, which resulted in four Australian cricketers getting suspended. In 2014, under the watchful eys of Lehmann, the Aussies regained the urn by whitewashing the Englishmen by 5-0 margin with the help of some brilliant spells from Mitchell Johnson, who repaid the faith of Lehmann and the selection committee by returning to Test cricket with 37 wickets to completely strip a shocked England squad.
Under Lehmann, Australia has played 57 Tests so far [Johannesburg game will be the 58], winning 30 of them. The team also lift the World Cup in 2015 for the fifth time under the leadership of Michael Clarke. and it was today 5 years back that the coveted trophy was lifted by the Aussies.
