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Stop taking the Mickey, it's time to move on

25th February, 2015
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You got sacked Mickey, get over it. (Image: AFP / William West)
Roar Guru
25th February, 2015
15
1739 Reads

Two years after being unceremoniously dumped as Australian coach, Mickey Arthur has been in the sports headlines again.

With the impending release of Daniel Brettig’s new book Whitewash to Whitewash, whiny quote machine Arthur has been wheeled out yet again to vent his spleen on his time as Aussie coach.

Like an obsessed ex-partner incapable of moving on, Mickey does not seem to understand the connection between professional confidentiality and the likelihood of receiving a glowing reference for future employment.

The story of Arthur is a fairly stock tale of a coach’s demise, although he does have the distinction of being the first, and potentially last, South African coach of our national side. As happens when most teams underachieve, the coach was made a scapegoat, and subsequently replaced by Darren Lehmann.

While this should have been the end of the matter, Arthur’s inability to take his sacking in his stride and move on has resulted in numerous gripes to the media in the following years.

Listening to the NTS commentary of this summer’s Big Bash League games was often blighted by Mickey’s self-obsessed comments and frequent references to his time as Australian coach.

Despite the best efforts of the other commentators to talk about the game, every second sentence from Arthur was punctuated with some variant of ‘when I was Australian coach…’.

We get it, Mickey. Maybe you were poorly treated. Perhaps you deserved a longer run, or more support from Cricket Australia. Then again, the side’s performances have certainly improved across the board since your axing.

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Regardless of what did and didn’t happen, please do yourself and the rest of us a favour, and move on. If you would rather work in the media than coach senior cricket, that’s your choice, but please just stick to 2015.

An insight gained from working closely with a player may be relevant, but save the ‘woe is me’ rants for your next book.

Australian cricket has moved on in a mostly successful fashion. Let’s all hope Mickey Arthur can do the same in coming years.

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