Mickey Arthur is not the first international coach sacked before the expiry of his term. The 46-year-old South-Africa-born Arthur was removed as Australian coach before the recent Ashes series.
by BIPIN DANI
A few years ago, another Australian coach, Geoff Marsh was sacked by Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) board and was replaced with South Africa’s Graham Ford. Greg Chappell too had no happy memories with the Indian cricket board and had been axed.
Unlike players, the international cricket coaches have no association to look after their interest. FICA (The Federation of International Cricketers’ Association), which looks after players’ interest in few countries, however, has offered to assist Arthur to settle his dispute with Cricket Australia (CA).
Mickey Arthur pictured when coaching South Africa (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
“In fact in Australia the ACA (Australian Cricketers’ Association) has provided the coaches with quite a lot of help as they consider setting up their own association”, Paul Marsh, the CEO, said exclusively from Melbourne.
“FICA’s members are cricket’s player associations. We have been set up to represent the collective interests of the players. Whilst we definitely support the umpires forming their own association, the interests of umpires are not always the same as those of the players and as such there is potential for a genuine conflict of interest if FICA represented both groups”.
“We would, however be more than happy to help provide them with advice and support should they wish to set up their own association”, he further added when asked whether Arthurs, Marshs and Chappells could get help.
“The coaches are in a similar situation as the umpires. We see a conflict of interest in representing both coaches and umpires but once again would be prepared to help them form their own association”, he further added.
“The other point to make is that most of the coaches are past players and as such are members of the respective player associations. They therefore have access to our many services and there would be nothing stopping us assisting them with personal issues they may have”, Marsh concluded.
Related articles
- Ashes 2013: Mickey Arthur’s racism claim is laughable - it was results that cost him his job (telegraph.co.uk)
- Mickey Arthur is confident of CA talks (bigpondnews.com)
Bipin Dani is a Civil Engineer by profession. He is also a senior cricket journalist of India having toured UAE, Sri Lanka, Morocco, Malaysia etc. Contributing for various newspapers in Asia’s four Test playing nations. Contact : geetabipin@hotmail.com
James Buttler
As the editor of World Cricket Badger he is intent on building the website to give quality coverage of the domestic game around the world.
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