Taking The Mickey

Mickey Arthur was one of SA’s longest-serving and most successful coaches. In 2008, along with the national team, he created history when the Proteas beat both England and Australia on their own turf. Beating Pakistan away from home the year before, set in motion an unprecedented journey to the number one ranking in both ODI and Test cricket. Since the world ranking system was introduced to international cricket, Australia has been the only other team to achieve this feat.

In 12 tours ‘down under’ spanning almost a century, South Africa has never managed to win a Test series in Australia. But Arthur, captain Graeme Smith and the rest of the team overcame incredible odds to chase a total of over 400 in the first Test in Perth. They faced what seemed certain defeat in Melbourne to win again and take an unbeatable 2-0 series lead. South Africa became the top ranked team in test cricket, finally unseating the mighty Australians who dominated for years. Soon after, they repeated this feat when they became the top ranked ODI team.


But behind the scenes, things weren’t always progressing smoothly. Whereas Arthur would do anything for the team, his uncompromising approach to administrators and refusal to be dictated to by men he believed were ‘out of touch’, was beginning to count against him. Not surprisingly, the Proteas failed to live up to the heights of 2008. They suffered the ignominy of a first round exit from the Champions Trophy at the beginning of the 2009 season. Soon after, they had to win the final Test of a four-match series against England to salvage a draw.

But there was nothing ominous about the players’ collective form and spirits were high as the squad prepared for a tour to India. The tour was for all intents and purposes a Test match ‘world championship’ between the two nations ranked first and second in the world. A week before the team’s departure, Arthur ‘resigned’. He was given no choice. A press conference was hastily called in his home town of East London and Smith flew from Cape Town to appear alongside him and quash rumours of deterioration in their personal relationship. Arthur never elaborated on the reasons for his untimely dismissal.

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Does Mickey Arthur have a plan?

I know that coach-bashing is a popular past-time in South African sports, but the more I look at the selections and planning around our national cricket team, the more I wonder whether or not Mickey Arthur really has a clue about where he’s taking this team?

The openers crisis
Our inability to find a decent opening pair is a starting point. Yes Ashwell Prince has had some success there but he’s indicated that he doesn’t want to play there on a regular basis and it puts a lot of pressure on the rest of the team when he gets out cheap.

Yes these may be our six best batters, but why are we trying to make an opener out of somebody out of a middle-order batter?

We have the Andrew Putticks and Stephen Cooks of the world who are chalking up the runs, but whenever the mess hits the fan we draft Herschelle Gibbs back in or try and invent an opener.

Friedel de Wet
De Wet at the age of 29 has come out of nowhere to represent the test squad and somehow is now the first choice back up to Dale Steyn. With Ntini’s retirement this makes him part of the first-choice attack. Where did he come from? He was never given a run in the ODI or T20 side before he suddenly got a surprise call-up.

Wayne Parnell, Lonwaba Tsotsobe, Rory Kleinveldt, Johan van der Wath, Yussuf Abdullah, Ryan Mclaren and Albie Morkel have all been given a crack in the ODI side. Somehow De Wet leapfrogs over all of these guys and Johan Botha into the first test team?

Imran Tahir
The Pakistani / we think South African spinner was out of the blue included in the fourth test match squad at the Wanderers.

Then he was dropped when questions around his eligibility were raised.

All of a sudden he has jumped ahead of all the other bowlers – including the very successful and experienced Johan Botha as a test candidate?

For sure it is easy to be an armchair fan and criticise Arthur and the selectors for the makeup of the team, but there doesn’t look like there is any real process happening here to develop and build a sustainable long-term team.