Dinner with Mickey and Graeme
By Mark Nicholas
Each morning, as he helps his players prepare for the day ahead, Mickey Arthur doffs the peak of his cap to all comers. It is a deference born of upbringing and a respect afforded to the game he loves deeply and which brings both a living and a life.
Arthur's enthusiasm burns as bright now as it did in the days when the smartly uniformed school boys of his childhood in Kwazulu Natal played among each other with Barry Richards and Mike Procter as their masthead. These were two hard acts to follow, for all but the most exceptional, and Arthur quickly identified a different path to the world stage, a path that he pursued with an almost messianic desire.
He wanted to coach and coach he would, first at home and then far and wide. After 6557 first-class runs batting for both Free State and Griqualand West, he cut his coaching teeth with Griquas before moving to the Eastern Cape and then into Ray Jennings' boots with the national team. More of that period of Mickey's life in a moment.
A week ago in Cape Town, the Pakistan players now in his charge failed to pull off the victory that would have seen them take the five match one-day series and thus earn some semblance of revenge for the pounding they took in the Test matches. Nevertheless, Arthur's joy in the players is unbridled. "The boys haven't slept in their own beds for nearly five months," he said. "They left Pakistan to prepare for the series against Australia in Dubai at the beginning of September and have moved from place to place ever since. Though the world game is sympathetic to the team not being able to play in Pakistan, the reality is that there is no substitute for the comfort and support of your own people.
"What you know is what you know, both culturally and practically, and you use it to the greatest effect you can. Home advantage is increasingly applied wherever we go, and the World Test Championship will only exacerbate that. It's a fact we deal with daily, and potentially it's a drain on morale, on optimism, on hope. I think the players deal with it incredibly well."
He is excited by the recent appointments of Ehsan Mani as president of the Pakistan cricket board and Wasim Khan as CEO. "They are alive to the demands of the game today, and in particular to the pressures heaped on the players by the schedules already in place and the temptations of the franchised global ten- and 20-over leagues that can change lives overnight.
"For Pakistan cricket to stay relevant and strong, the best players have to be available all the time - it's a challenge faced by everyone, but one that particularly relates to us because of our mainly amateur, pretty random, and certainly too thinly spread domestic structure that feeds the national team."
He's on a roll now, is Mickey. "I love these boys. Given everything, you'd think there would be some misgivings as they went about their daily routines, but no, each day is greeted with the same positive outlook and intent. They live by high morals and a strict discipline. Though cricket is serious business for them, every aspect of their day is enjoyed to the full - from preparation to performance, from dawn to dusk. They are eager to learn, never fail to ask questions, and take criticism every bit as well as they take credit.
"I love the time I spend in Lahore and learn more about the culture every day. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that you haven't really coached until you have coached on the subcontinent and seen the unbridled enthusiasm for the game that drives the ambition of the players and the affection for them shown by the public. I have to say that I have developed a real passion for Pakistan cricket. There is some amazing talent here - Shaheen Afridi is a teenager, for goodness' sake, mixing it with the Amlas, Elgars and du Plessises!
"Babar Azam is among the five most talented batsmen in the world. Do you know, he sends every penny of his income home - most of them do. Until last year he drove a beaten up Honda. Then, one night round the family dinner table, his father made a short speech saying how much honor his son had brought to the family and how they loved him. Whereupon he gave Babar a set of car keys and outside the door was a brand-new white Honda. Babar is so proud of it. I mean, a Honda - and Chris Lynn, who will never play a Test match in his life, drives round Brisbane in a Lamborghini!"
… Pakistan were beaten in little more than three days in each of the three Tests and Arthur publicly grumbled about some of the decision reviews that went against his team and about the cracked pitches, which were spicy to say the least and, at times, closer to dangerous than is right.
"I'm in favor of home advantage, but not of dumbing down surfaces to create uneven bounce that compromises the game. A balance between bat and ball is essential, of course it is, and if it weighs in favor of the ball that may be no bad thing, but the pitches we have seen through the one-day series, on the same grounds as those used for the Test matches, prove that home advantage was taken too far over the three Tests.
"Yes, South Africa have a terrific fast bowling attack and they outplayed us, but cricket has to be careful what it wishes for. The game is made up of many skills and attributes and we should all seek common ground to allow them to flourish. South African pitches never used to be like the ones we saw at Centurion and Cape Town, or the one India played on at the Wanderers last year. There's no need to spice them up - the quick bowlers have always had a good run for their money in South Africa anyway."
Smith was hard pressed to disagree, though he pointed out that Pakistan were ill prepared, a point with which Arthur could not argue. "It's a tough schedule and the fine balance between rest and play is almost impossible to get right. In total we had three months in the UAE before coming here, and a couple of tougher provincial matches might have been better than the two informal warm-up games we played. In general, I think more time should be given to preparation, otherwise the current trend for teams to struggle away from home will get worse and Test cricket will become too predictable because of it."
… Arthur's greatest challenge came in the most unlikely fashion, and in Australia. Appointed the first foreign cricket coach of the national team, he moved from the frying pan of South Africa's diverse complexities to the fire of Australian sport. He had emigrated with his family to Perth, in search of a safer life for his growing girls. He impressed in his work for Western Warriors and the Australian job came up - bingo. He loved the country-wide commitment to cricket, how much the folk knew and cared, and how the players saw the game as a mirror of life. He found Michael Clarke to be both a reliable ally and brilliant tactician and David Warner a pleasure with whom to work in all facets of the game. In fact, he and Warner remained close and in frequent touch even after Arthur had been moved on.
"Homeworkgate", as it became known, was to blame for his sacking - indirectly, we should say - after a bad defeat in India moved the coach to ask the players to self-appraise their performance and suggest ways forward with some notes of their own that Arthur would collate and share. That four of the trickier players failed to contribute irked the management and led to Arthur being pushed to act in the setting of precedent. Against his better judgement, but with strong support from the captain and team manager, he did so. The players were sent home and so began Arthur's journey down to the thinnest edge of the Australian wedge. "It was tough to be an outsider in that job, which isn't to say I didn't enjoy it, because I did, but the end was desperately disappointing. We were moving in the right direction, albeit against a turning tide in attitudes and approach from both Cricket Australia and some of the players."
It is quite a portfolio - South Africa, Australia and Pakistan at international level. He is the most charming man, savvy enough to negotiate rough waters and smart enough to adapt to place and time. Of all the ticks one might put alongside his name, the fact that the players he works with so value him might be first among them. He has been known to use both carrot and stick but, unconditionally, he will fight the cause of those in his care.
Down the road, he might have England in his sights, either with the national team or a county. He likes the place, for a start. It would be a surprise if Ashley Giles did not sound him out, among a select few candidates, for the job to be vacated by Trevor Bayliss at the end of the coming English summer. Does it come too soon, though? Pakistan cricket is now set deep in Arthur's heart and the raft of talent that continues to emerge from these formidable people will be hard to resist.
Stick or twist, Mickey? It's a tough one, but when pushed, his immediate response was to stick. As he quickly pointed out, it's a hypothetical question and something of a distraction while there is a World Cup to win. Failing to get any further with my probing, I made my way back to the hotel, at which point Graeme dragged Mickey to the bar for a whiskey or two: old habits die hard. So many battles shared and so many won. - www.espncricinfo.com
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