Mickey Arthur departs

I've never been a fan of Mickey Arthur as the South African cricket coach. Yes he has a decent record but in reality he acquired a really top quality team.

At any stage in his tenure he had the worlds top all-round cricketers (Jacques Kallis and Shaun Pollock), one of the worlds top batters and longest serving captains (Graeme Smith), the worlds top-ranked fast bowler (Dale Steyn) and a host of other superstars in the side.

I was thinking back over his time in charge and trying to work out what were the real highlights for him.

• We won in Australia - but that result was courtesy of some exceptional individual performances. Does that get attributed to the coach?
• We couldn't follow this up with a win at home (Mental toughness? Unlucky?)
  
• We drew with England at home with the side blowing hot and cold. Some odd selections and a side that looked very undercooked for the ODI and at least the first two test matches

The only one that really jumped out at me is the performance on the sub-continent where really strong management is vital. Winning a test series in India requires a concerted effort both by the players as well as the support staff and this we managed.

As a slight aside - it is interesting to see our Corrie Van Zyl continues to chug along as a regular feature in this side. He's obviously doing something right!

The real question now is who is going to takeover in the long run. I suspect that it has to be somebody with a really strong personality that can work well with Graeme Smith. Is Van Zyl or somebody like Kepler Wessels the right man? Maybe...

My personal choice would be Gary Kirsten but I'm not sure he'd give up the big money India job just yet.