Taking the Mickey – The Inside Story
by Mickey Arthur with Neil Manthorp
(Jonathan Ball, R198)
Jos Charle
AS THE president of Cricket South Africa, Dr Mthutuzeli Nyoka, fights to retain his position, a man is sitting thousands of kilometres away, possibly with a victorious smirk on his face.
This is because Mickey Arthur, the former Proteas coach, had blamed Nyoka for his early demise.
In his book Taking the Mickey – The Inside Story, Arthur directly blames men in suits – especially Nyoka – for making his stay as the man in charge of the Proteas a difficult one.
Now the boot seems to be on the other foot as the provincial presi-dents, who make up Cricket SA’s highest decision-making body, want Nyoka out.
The boardroom politicking comes a few weeks before the start of the ICC World Cup.
Arthur was one of South Africa’s longest-serving coaches and the most successful yet. He created history when the Proteas beat England and Australia on their own turf – a feat hard to accomplish by any visiting side.
Arthur traces his beginning as a young cricket player in Northern Cape and his rise to the position as Proteas coach.
During his tenure the team not only triumphed in England and Australia, but reached number the one spot in Test and limited overs cricket.
In spite of this, according to Arthur, the suits never relented and continued to make his life mise-rable. By his account the bone of contention was not always the Proteas’ on-field performance. It was always about politics – notably selections and advancement of black players.
Not only did Arthur fight with Nyoka, but he had run-ins earlier with then-president Norman Arendse.
Arthur recalls one stormy selection meeting: “Norman was not prepared to budge. He was not prepared to listen, and the concept of compromise never entered his head – at least, that was the way it sounded. At that point, it began to get ugly. He was shouting at me and accusing me of all sorts of preju-dices.
“He said I was being just like Springbok coach Jake White and refusing to give black players an opportunity. He said that Jake ‘talked the talk but then only picked two black wings’.
“I replied that Jake White had won a World Cup. I told him that, from the moment he had assumed the presidency, he had acted as though Cricket South Africa was all about him and his ideals. I told him he was treating CSA and its people as though they were his personal property – and he was acting like a control freak,” fumes Arthur.
Of course, the book is not only about acrimony between administrators and coaches. Arthur takes readers into what goes on during tours (without getting into salacious details a la Herschelle Gibbs in his biography).
He also details key matches and performances of individual Proteas under his guidance and tells of a serious fallout he had with Makhaya Ntini and his friendship with captain Graeme Smith. In a chapter titled The End, Arthur tells of his departure from CSA after a meeting he had with CEO Gerald Majola, who is now under fire.
He describes how, as he was leaving after the meeting, he saw Nyoka sitting in his car in the parking lot of the CSA headquarters in Joburg.
“I started the car and began to drive away from the Wanderers offices for the last time when I saw Doc Nyoka sitting in his car… He had been there the whole time. As I drove out, he got out of his car and walked towards the front door… I was left with an impression of a man who didn’t have the balls to say goodbye to me, let alone thank you. He had left the job to the CEO.”
Arthur lets his wife, Yvette, have the last word in the book. She tells of their life together, his cricket tours, his love for their three daughters and their then-impending move to Australia.
“Goodbye South Africa. A new dawn breaks. No regrets,” she concludes.
Taking the Mickey is not a “can’t put down” biography. But it takes the reader into the inner sanctums of the cricketing world and cold wars that dominate the tours, selection of players, management and relationships involving the officials, players and managers.