I blame John Buchanan. Not for everything, but for the current trend for management speak nonsense that permeates international cricket. Ever since Buchanan took a disproportionate amount of credit for the achievements of one of the greatest collections of cricketers in history, the trend has been for cod psychology masquerading as wisdom and team building. Shane Warne's view of the importance of coaches is simplistic, but the actions of too many current coaches smack of self-importance and management learned from text books written by lunatics.
On the face of it, there's nothing wrong with asking players to come up with suggestions as to how to improve the performances of a struggling side, although in this instance it would have helped to have picked the right team and the right squad. Indeed, players should be actively encouraged to participate in discussions about how things are progressing, but to impose the task in the way that Mickey Arthur did, and his apparently regular use of email to contact his players, smacks of a man who is trying too hard to appear managerial and, instead, looks like a buffoon. He is, after all, managing a squad of seventeen players, all of whom are practicing together, staying together, travelling together and eating together - speaking to them, either individually or as a group, can't be that hard, surely. To then react by suspending four players (and what would he have done if seven players had failed to complete the task?) certainly seems to be excessive.
Of course we don't know all of the details, just as we don't know the details of the falling out in the England dressing room that lead to the ostracism of Kevin Pietersen. Michael Clarke has said that it wasn't an isolated incident although, not unreasonably, he didn't provide any further details. It's also true that it hardly seemed an onerous task for the players to carry out, poorly conceived though it may have been. After all, how long does it take to write fly out some proper spinners, drop Phil Hughes and replace the coach?
On the face of it, there's nothing wrong with asking players to come up with suggestions as to how to improve the performances of a struggling side, although in this instance it would have helped to have picked the right team and the right squad. Indeed, players should be actively encouraged to participate in discussions about how things are progressing, but to impose the task in the way that Mickey Arthur did, and his apparently regular use of email to contact his players, smacks of a man who is trying too hard to appear managerial and, instead, looks like a buffoon. He is, after all, managing a squad of seventeen players, all of whom are practicing together, staying together, travelling together and eating together - speaking to them, either individually or as a group, can't be that hard, surely. To then react by suspending four players (and what would he have done if seven players had failed to complete the task?) certainly seems to be excessive.
Of course we don't know all of the details, just as we don't know the details of the falling out in the England dressing room that lead to the ostracism of Kevin Pietersen. Michael Clarke has said that it wasn't an isolated incident although, not unreasonably, he didn't provide any further details. It's also true that it hardly seemed an onerous task for the players to carry out, poorly conceived though it may have been. After all, how long does it take to write fly out some proper spinners, drop Phil Hughes and replace the coach?
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