Rob Houwing

It was unusual for Mickey Arthur, one of cricket’s most courteous and likeable characters, not to have replied to my phone message within 24 hours. I don’t mean me specifically … the same would apply to most cricket writers he knows.

I had tried him on Monday morning for an intended catch-up on South Africa’s preparations for the Indian tour, looming very large.

It is apparent now that he was preoccupied with altogether weightier things, like having made up his mind to vacate his post after almost five years – he assumed the role from Ray Jennings in May 2005 – and shunning his passage, at short notice, to the sub-continent.

The immediacy of Arthur’s action – it had not yet come from the horse’s mouth as this was penned – caught me off-guard, as it would have most.

His actually doing it, in the aftermath of the Proteas’ rather shaky, split-personality home summer? Not quite so much.

Coaching or captaining this country, with the unique factors and needs that accompany it, is a particularly exhausting responsibility, and this against a universal backdrop which suggests more and more that coaches in professional sport have definite “shelf-lives” anyway.

Speaking of captaincy, if it is true that Arthur’s relationship with Graeme Smith had “deteriorated irreparably”, it is remarkable in some ways how the latter continues to prosper in his portfolio – he has now outlasted several coaches, including the indelicate taskmaster Jennings and affable “diplomats” in Arthur and Eric Simons.

There is even the old quip doing the rounds that Smith was significantly responsible for the fall from grace of two England captains, never mind any matters closer to home!

It might well be muttered in some circles that Smith has had a prolonged innings too (he took the captaincy in 2003) and that perhaps he, as much as Arthur, might have been ripe for replacement.

In Smith’s case, things are a little more complicated. The man positively thrives on pressure and responsibility; the Proteas’ most luminary achievements have often coincided with batting majesty by the imposing left-hander.

And the team at his present disposal is not exactly brimming with candidates either suitable or – just as crucial – desperately desirous to have the task.

If captain and coach had indeed started to clash on key fronts, potentially to the detriment of team harmony and spirit, then if someone was to go it was arguably more appropriate that it be Arthur.

We certainly know that the genial coach, 41, had locked horns also with the chief of national selectors, Mike Procter, of late: it is very tempting to believe that Arthur had simply become “gatvol”, to use a marvellously indigenous expression, and decided to quit while the going was relatively good (read: that magnificent, Test series-levelling demolition of England at the Wanderers).

Rollercoaster ride

It has been a right old rollercoaster ride by South Africa in Arthur’s time.

Goose-pimply highs, in Arthur’s era of calm man-management, included the Proteas’ first Test series win in England in 43 years, followed not very long afterwards by something that had never been achieved by South Africa: glory in Australia.

Both one-day series against the arch-enemy Aussies in 2008/09 were secured as well, even if a blot on the copybook was surrendering the return, home Test series limply in the first two encounters.

And then there is Arthur’s presence, of course, when South Africa won a previous ODI series against Australia 3-2 in 2005/06, an outcome secured in that immortal “438” match in Johannesburg, place of the coach’s birth.

But the troughs have occasionally been profound in their magnitude, too. They include a 5-0 crushing over back-to-back Test series against Australia in 2005/06, with only a fighting draw first-up in Perth to show, although admittedly these came pretty soon after Arthur took charge.

The Proteas were also embarrassed in Tests in Sri Lanka in 2006, before quitting the one-day part of the venture following a blast in Colombo.

Also under Arthur’s supervision, South Africa continued to be stalked mercilessly by that old “major one-day tournaments” hoodoo.

They could not deliver a World Cup (2007), they stumbled out in successive World Twenty20s, and also served up a raspberry in the home-staged ICC Champions Trophy earlier this season.

It is quite likely, in fact, that the gargantuan burden of finally delivering the World Cup to a South African cabinet in 2011 was already becoming a cross too heavy to carry for Arthur. It leaves Smith as the key commander of that frankly near-thankless task now.

Arthur quitting as this point has been described in some circles as leaving the Proteas in a state of “chaos” with the Indian Test and ODI tour only days away.

Well, yes and no. “Yes” because of the obvious state of immediate flux and uncertainty, with Corrie van Zyl reportedly destined to do a temporary replacement job, but “no” because the Test team is a reasonably settled pool of individuals who know the “systems” and drills backwards and still have their long-time on-field leader at the helm.

In many respects, Arthur has done South African cricket a favour by resigning at this juncture.

There are probably going to be several high-calibre options available as successors – I will discuss that issue separately on Sport24 – and there is probably time enough for the new man to lay down a solid template ahead of the aforementioned next World Cup on the sub-continent, which will obviously be a red-letter occasion for the Proteas considering our unfortunate heritage at the event.

As they say after a fierce mountainside blaze, sometimes apparent disaster is followed, quicker than you think, by promising new shoots, a rekindling of nature’s wonder. Maybe our national cricket team needed some new direction, fresh ideas?

And as for Arthur personally, his stocks are relatively high – even if detractors might protest loudly -- after a riveting Test series against England which even the British media generally acknowledged the home nation were unlucky only to share.

Speaking of England, Arthur is a known admirer of the traditions, ethos and quaint aesthetic appeal of English cricket at all levels – he would be a popular appointment to, say, a county side there, and almost certainly be willing and eager to sample the British way of life.

He will not be idle for long, is my guess.

Courtesy of those epic Test series achievements in England and Australia, Mickey Arthur’s place in the pantheon of South African coaching legends is almost certainly assured: the game’s connoisseurs will be the quickest to acknowledge that.

And that’s not a bad outcome at all for a person whose initial appointment to the Proteas was greeted with some scepticism, considering his nice-guy, small-town image (he leads a quiet, family life in East London) and relative infancy even as a franchise coach then.

Many will join me in wishing a genuinely good man well – very, very well – in whatever challenge comes next.

Rob is Sport24's chief writer

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