This week Makhaya Ntini’s career has been lauded at home and abroad after he announced his retirement from international cricket.
On Monday, his former coach will accuse him of stabbing him in the back.
Mickey Arthur, whose autobiography Taking the Mickey – The Inside Story will be released on Monday, claims Ntini accused him and South African captain Graeme Smith of not wanting black players in the national team, when Ntini was dropped because of his form.
Arthur also rips open the circumstances surrounding his ignominious departure from the top job in South African cricket, accusing Cricket South Africa president Mtutuzeli Nyoka of being a gutless interferer and Nyoka’s predecessor Norman Arendse of gross disrespect.
The book will add to what has been one of the most turbulent weeks in the sport’s history following Herschelle Gibbs’s bestselling warts-and-all memoirs published at the beginning of the week, blowing the whistle on team orgies and heavy drinking as well as giving his views on many individuals within the team.
Arthur tells how he, Smith and the South African team’s manager Mohammed Moos-ajee, forced Gibbs to get help, despite his unwillingness, after Gibbs became so drunk at a Sandton hotel in 2008 that he began making lewd suggestions to woman guests.
But it is Arthur’s views on Ntini that will most stun those in South African cricket circles just days after Cricket SA’s chief executive Gerald Majola compared the fast bowling icon to former president Nelson Mandela.
Since Ntini announcing on Tuesday he was retiring from the game at international level, his contribution to the game has received high praise from teammates and coaches.
“The only person I can compare Makhaya to, in terms of what he has done for cricket and for South Africa, is Madiba,” Majola said this week.
Instead, Arthur said he lost respect for Ntini after the fast bowler complained to some of the sports senior administrators after being dropped from the one-day side at the start of the 2008/09 season.
In an exclusive extract today (see page 11) the former coach describes a breakfast he shared with Ntini, Nyoka and former CSA president Ray Mali two years ago, where Nyoka apologised to Ntini for his absence from the one-day side.
“I was flabbergasted and I felt my anger rise,” writes Arthur. “At the time, I thought how ashamed Makkie would be in the years to come when he reflected on the way he had behaved.”
But it is the game’s senior administrators, especially Nyoka and Arendse, whose interference in team selection nearly caused a player boycott in 2008, who bear the full brunt of Arthur’s scorn.
Nyoka’s criticism of Arthur’s team selection, particularly the lack of a black African in the starting XI of the Test side that played against England at the Wanderers earlier this year, led to his demise as coach.
Arthur describes Arendse as “aggressive” and a “control freak” during one particularly heated selection meeting in 2008, while Nyoka, who played the most influential role in Arthur’s axing, was said to be gutless.
Meanwhile, Gibbs’s biography has sold out in less than two days, this week the bad news is that he could still face legal action after CSA announced that it had instructed its lawyers to scrutinise the book.
Steve Smith, Gibbs’s co-author, said the two had never anticipated such an outcry.
“We didn’t write a book worthy of such strong reaction. Unfortunately the Sunday papers sensationalised it, choosing only the most controversial aspects without publishing, or talking about, the context in which the book presents them,” said Smith.
“It would seem some of the Proteas (playing in the UAE) reacted to the newspaper articles without having read the book.”
However, Smith said he was honoured and privileged to have worked with Gibbs on the project.
After spending time with the Proteas batsmen while producing the book, Smith said he had been somewhat “inspired” by Gibbs’s character as a cricketer as well as a regular person.
“Hersch has lived his life on his own terms and taken full responsibility for whatever consequences have arisen. Sure, as a man, he has his flaws. So do I. But, if you read the book, you'll see how hard he has worked to deal with his own demons. I really respect that.
”That’s the great thing about this book. Hersch invites you to judge him,” he added.
