Johannesburg,
\nA tearful Darren Lehmann on Thursday said he would quit as coach of the scandal-tainted Australia cricket team after the fourth and final Test of a series in South Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be my last Test as head coach of the Australian cricket team,\u201d Lehmann told a press conference on the eve of the match.<\/p>\n
\u201cSaying goodbye to the players was the toughest thing I have ever had to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter seeing events in the media today with Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft, the feeling is that Australian cricket needs to move forward and this is the right thing to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really felt for Steve and as you see I\u2019m crying in front of the media. All the players are really hurting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lehmann, who was due to leave the job after the 2019 Ashes series in England, is quitting despite being cleared of any role in the ball-tampering scandal that has rocked the sport.<\/p>\n
His decision follows 12-month bans given to captain Smith and vice-captain David Warner for the roles they played in a plot to cheat in Cape Town last Saturday during the third Test.<\/p>\n
Opening batsman Bancroft was banned for nine months for his part in the affair.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy family and I have copped a lot of abuse over the last week and it\u2019s taken its toll,\u201d added Lehmann.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter speaking to my family at length over the last few days, it\u2019s the right time to step away.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am ultimately responsible for the culture of the team and I\u2019ve been thinking about my position for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite telling media yesterday that I\u2019m not resigning, after viewing Steve and Cameron\u2019s hurting, it is only fair that I make this decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Johannesburg, A tearful Darren Lehmann on Thursday said he would quit as coach of the scandal-tainted Australia cricket team after the fourth and final Test of a series in South Africa. \u201cThis will be my last Test as head coach of the Australian cricket team,\u201d Lehmann told a press conference on the eve of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26368,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26367"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26369,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26367\/revisions\/26369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}