‘I pick the team but the captain is the leader’
South Africa coach Mickey Arthur has been speaking exclusively to SPIN about his coaching methods.
Arthur, who has recently been approached in connection with the vacant England coaching job, has just signed a new three-year contract with South Africa. He told SPIN “I’m very happy with South Africa. I love every minute of the job I do. I’m thoroughly enjoying it at the moment.”
But with Tom Moody and Graham Ford having counted themselves out of the running, the ECB’s short-list is getting ever shorter. And Arthur, who, with skipper Graeme Smith, has made South Africa the No 1 ODI team in the world, may become an increasingly attractive proposition.
Arthur’s team has registered series wins in England and Australia over the last nine months. Beyond caretaker coach Andy Flower and ex-India boss John Wright, Arthur is one of the few remaining candidates.
His interview, with SPIN’s Wayne Veysey, provides some intriguing clues as to how he would run the England team. It appears in full in the April issue of SPIN, on news-stands now, or available from the SPIN shop. The following is an extract.
SPIN: Who is the boss? The captain or the coach?
Mickey Arthur: I’m a big believer that the captain is still the leader. They both lead in their own jobs: the captain on the field and the coach off the field. All off-field activities in terms of preparation are my area. Then Graeme takes over the team meeting the night before a game and I will back him up. So we know exactly where we stand.
On tour we will meet virtually every day to decide what we’re going to do and who is going to say what. It’s vital that we don’t contradict each other. Coaches can over-complicate issues. Coaches can be too technical. What I have done is try and create the environment for our players to perform by giving them stability in their jobs and consistency in what we tell them.
How should a captain- coach relationship work?
They must sit down and formulate the brand of cricket that they want the team to play and to pick the personnel to implement the brand. Graeme and I thrashed out our thoughts on cricket and we felt exactly the same. I’m a firm believer in the captain and coach having the same philosophy and sharing the same methods so not to confuse the players. We both wanted our team to take the game forward, to play without fear. Previous South African teams had been too tentative in their approach.
How do you motivate the team’s batsmen?
I like the guys to take responsibility as a group. In every Test we ask the top six to get 300 runs in the first innings. That is their job. It takes the ‘I’ out of the group. As a top six they are working as a team. When players have clarity, you get accountability and performance. There are a lot of slogans in the dressing room and they get a document saying, ‘I am responsible for these runs.’
And the bowlers?
We encourage the bowlers to strive for 20 wickets. They are each given specific roles. We have three attacking bowlers – Dale Steyn, Makhaya Ntini and Morne Morkel. As a unit they are all different. Dale is skiddy and swings it out at pace; Morne is tall and gets bounce; Ntini comes in at you from wide on the crease. They are different forms of attack.
The holding roles are done by Paul Harris and Jacques Kallis. They are a bit more defensive. I need a spinner and Kallis to hold the game. Dale is our spearhead. He is the go-to man. At most times we are looking for him to strike. Ntini and Morne to a degree have the same responsibility.
Should the coach select the players?
I am one of four selectors. I sit on the panel and so does Graeme. I’m asked for my opinion on the squad. I don’t have a vote on the squad but I feature very strongly in discussions. Once the squad is selected, I become the sole selector at home and abroad. At home you are always with the convenor [chief selector].
Abroad, I become the sole selector. Graeme and I have a lot of discussion but ultimately we are always on the same page. We have never had conflict. Because we share the same philosophy, selecting becomes an easy thing.
How far ahead do you plan?
All good teams look ahead. We have our eye on succession planning. We identified JP Duminy two years ago as our next best batsman. He has been travelling with us for two years in Test cricket as a member of the squad and been playing one-day international cricket. It has been no fluke. We deliberately brought him through two years with that in mind.
We have got a young quick bowler Lonwabo Tsotsobe who is the future. In terms of all-rounders Albie Morkel could be a Test all-rounder. I think he could be. Imran Tahir could be the missing piece. He could enable us to play two spinners on the sub-continent.
And finally… Are you interested in becoming England coach?
I will never say never. But I have just signed a three-year contract and I’m very happy with South Africa. I love every minute of the job I do. I’m thoroughly enjoying it at the moment.
John Wright: ‘I wouldn’t need 13-man support team’
April 3, 2009 by Duncan Steer
Filed under News
John Wright – one of the leading candidates for the vacant England coach’s job – says he would not need the 13-man backroom staff currently used by the side.
England’s sizeable back-up staff, developed under Peter Moores, has attracted criticism over a winter that has seen just two wins in 17 games.
Wright, currently working as a selector and coaching consultant for New Zealand, coached India for five years from 2000 and, with captain Sourav Ganguly, was credited with developing the most successful Indian team in history.
“I only ever operated with a physio and a fitness trainer and once, when we went to Australia, a bowling coach,” said Wright, speaking exclusively to SPIN magazine. “Every coach is different and has different ideas. But players need space, because they’ve got to compete. It’s good if they’ve got clear minds and understand perfectly what they need to do.”
Discussing the epic 2001 series win that ended Steve Waugh’s Australians’ record run of Test wins, he said: “Before that series, we’d had a 10-day camp where we’d worked from 7am, with two three-hour sessions per day, then planning in the evening. It was only me, the physio and the team – I quite like that sort of intimacy. But you can’t coach [VVS] Laxman and [Rahul] Dravid to bat the way they did at Kolkata. They did that. It was just great to watch and to be thankful they’d saved my job.
“You want players that want to be world class and not just represent the country – they want to be ranked in the top three in the world and that’s it. If you get enough of those in your team, the winning is going to take care of itself. It’s that simple. You put around those champions some people who can support them.”
Asked whether the personality clashes that led to the departure of coach and captain Kevin Pietersen and Peter Moores had been an issue when coaching India’s team of superstars, Wright said not.
“You’re part of a group so there have to be some group norms. They knew it wasn’t a good idea for them to be late for the bus. We tried to create some intensity at training and made sure no-one did anything to harm the team. Just simple things. Any of those simple things and sensible things that people can respect and understand, and know that they actually matter.
“As a coach, you have some non-negotiables. Just simple things that everyone in the team can keep, whether they’re a rock star, whether they’re the best player on the team or the least experience.
“I was very lucky with the boys I worked with. They have certain pressures that you have to understand and certain demands placed on them. They have a completely different set of demands than the young boy that has just come into the team so you’ve got to work around those sorts of things and understand the reason they’re there for is for cricket – and they’ve got to produce performances.”
The full interview with John Wright appears in the April issue of SPIN magazine in our 10-page special on international coaching, which also features interviews with Andy Flower and Mickey Arthur.
