Mickey Arthur’s reign begins with Australia’s cricket team

THERE are 720 pages in Steve Waugh’s epic life story ‘Out of My Comfort Zone’ and Mickey Arthur read every one of them … then went back for more.
“I read it once and I have probably read half of it again,” said Arthur as he prepared for his first outing as Australia’s new cricket coach at the Gabba.
“There are times when I am in my library browsing around when I will grab it and read a couple of chapters. I am a cricket nut. I love reading those books.”
Arthur’s bookshelves are crammed with autobiographies of sporting figures great and small from cycling legend Lance Armstrong to rugby coach Rod Macqueen to soccer legend Sir Alex Ferguson and cricketers Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden.
“I have all of John Buchanan’s coaching books. For John to achieve what he did for so long was phenomenal. He would have had to challenge them all the time. I suppose part of me is looking for coaching ideas but there is also the sports fan inside me. I just love it.
South African Arthur is a coach-sports fan for whom too much sport is never enough.
Even as a youngster he would take his cricket gear with him when he accompanied his father to district games in Natal on a Sunday in the hope that someone would withdraw and he could bat with his dad.
Raised in Durban where his idol was local legend Barry Richards, Arthur played first-class cricket for Griqualand West and Orange Free State for more than a decade as a determined opening batsman who knew he had to have flawless enthusiasm and an insatiable work ethic to match wits with more gifted rivals.
His first sighting of Australian cricketers, a match against Kim Hughes’s rebels in the mid-1980s, gave him an instant insight into Australia’s competitive edge.
“My first game of first-class cricket was against the rebel Australians and Rodney Hogg bowled the first ball. Those games were subsequently erased from the record books. I was a young 18-year-old. He was quick. He certainly let me know he was around.
“I was never as talented as the next guy. I see my coaching as the guy who works really hard who had to do the next little bit to get the reward.
“That’s why I identify not with the pure geniuses but the guys who have to work a little harder. That is a talent I really admire.”
Arthur’s coaching philosophies have been shaped by a broad spectrum of influences including, playing, reading, listening, modern science, computers and old fashioned homespun wisdom from the likes of South Africa’s cement-coated all-rounder Eddie Barlow.
“I grew up watching Barry Richards day in and day out and just thought he was special. But the guy who had the impact on my coaching career was the late Barlow. He was phenomenal. There was nothing grey with Eddie.”
As naturally cheerful as he is, Arthur learnt from Barlow that the smile must occasionally turn to steel.
Arthur had no idea Steve Waugh would later be the man who interviewed him when Australia was doing the Argus Report.
Waugh was reportedly most impressed and while he was not on the coaching interview panel it is big plus for Arthur to think that one of the game’s most discerning voices likes his style.

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