Some of you may remember that when Mickey Arthur was appointed as Pakistan coach in early 2016 I went through his autobiography "Taking the Mickey" with a fine tooth comb.
From my point of view, I was keen to find out how he would deal with Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan. Both players were 5-10 years older than the age at which other countries retire their players permanently, and both had a record of underperforming in 80% of innings outside Asia since their mid-30's.
I found out what I was looking for, but I also learned how important it is to Mickey that each player works on his non-specialist skills. The spinner Paul Harris was given as a specialist bowler who was made to spend hundreds of hours on his batting and fielding until he could be relied upon to bat for long periods.
The key story within Mickey's book relates to the axeing of Shaun Pollock during the tour of Pakistan in October 2007.
Pollock could no longer reach 140K in Test cricket, and Arthur wanted to give young Paul Harris a prolonged run as the specialist spinner.
There was no question that Pollock was still a far superior cricketer to Harris. He was virtually worth a position as a batsman alone, and as a medium-fast bowler was still better than Harris was ever going to be.
But that wasn't the point. Mickey Arthur believes in continuously overhauling a team, so that every year the oldest player of the team makes way for a promising youngster.
Doing it that way there is never a team which suffers a transition period, it just smoothly overhauls itself like the Liverpool football club of the period 1976-1989.
I've written elsewhere how this would be operationalized with batsmen.
A team can carry one batsman in the age group 30-32 and one in the age group 32-34, but it needs to be explicit that they are a year-by-year or even series-by-series proposition, and that as soon as they start to fail with the consistency that Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq is now, or that Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq showed in the final five years of their careers.
To be honest, now is when it makes the most sense.
Azhar Ali hit a purple patch in Australia 2 years ago when he was 31.10 years old.
But his contemporaries like Alastair Cook and AB De Villiers have retired now, and already at 33.10 years of age we see a batsman who can score runs on easy UAE tracks but whose output is in severe decline.
The case of Asad Shafiq is even more disturbing. He is trading off a century that he scored at Brisbane when the pressure was off because the Test already seemed lost. He is now 32.11 years old, yet in the last two years is averaging a paltry 35.
If you take Mickey Arthur's book at face value, he would be willing to carry whichever one of Azhar Ali or Asad Shafiq was averaging 45 or more over the last 2 years, and failing in fewer than 30% of his innings.
But instead we have:
1) Azhar Ali, who is about to be 34 years old, who averages just 32 these last 2 years.
2) Asad Shafiq, who is about to be 33 years old, who averages just 35 these last 2 years.
Mickey Arthur has become more cautious since he essentially lost his job as coach of Australia for axeing Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, Usman Khawaja and James Pattinson for disciplinary breaches.
I can see why he put up with having to carry Misbah and Younis around England, Australia and New Zealand even though they literally failed in 85% of their innings. They were too big to drop.
But Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq are players who are at an age at which their contemporaries in other countries are being permanently retired.
And they are averaging in the early 30's.
Why are those players - and Sarfraz Ahmed - retained when the Mickey Arthur mantra is that if you are over 30, only one or two of you can be in the team, and only for as long as you perform.
But those three - and Yasir Shah outside Asia - are not performing. Not at all.
From my point of view, I was keen to find out how he would deal with Misbah-ul-Haq and Younis Khan. Both players were 5-10 years older than the age at which other countries retire their players permanently, and both had a record of underperforming in 80% of innings outside Asia since their mid-30's.
I found out what I was looking for, but I also learned how important it is to Mickey that each player works on his non-specialist skills. The spinner Paul Harris was given as a specialist bowler who was made to spend hundreds of hours on his batting and fielding until he could be relied upon to bat for long periods.
The key story within Mickey's book relates to the axeing of Shaun Pollock during the tour of Pakistan in October 2007.
Pollock could no longer reach 140K in Test cricket, and Arthur wanted to give young Paul Harris a prolonged run as the specialist spinner.
There was no question that Pollock was still a far superior cricketer to Harris. He was virtually worth a position as a batsman alone, and as a medium-fast bowler was still better than Harris was ever going to be.
But that wasn't the point. Mickey Arthur believes in continuously overhauling a team, so that every year the oldest player of the team makes way for a promising youngster.
Doing it that way there is never a team which suffers a transition period, it just smoothly overhauls itself like the Liverpool football club of the period 1976-1989.
I've written elsewhere how this would be operationalized with batsmen.
A team can carry one batsman in the age group 30-32 and one in the age group 32-34, but it needs to be explicit that they are a year-by-year or even series-by-series proposition, and that as soon as they start to fail with the consistency that Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq is now, or that Younis Khan and Misbah-ul-Haq showed in the final five years of their careers.
To be honest, now is when it makes the most sense.
Azhar Ali hit a purple patch in Australia 2 years ago when he was 31.10 years old.
But his contemporaries like Alastair Cook and AB De Villiers have retired now, and already at 33.10 years of age we see a batsman who can score runs on easy UAE tracks but whose output is in severe decline.
The case of Asad Shafiq is even more disturbing. He is trading off a century that he scored at Brisbane when the pressure was off because the Test already seemed lost. He is now 32.11 years old, yet in the last two years is averaging a paltry 35.
If you take Mickey Arthur's book at face value, he would be willing to carry whichever one of Azhar Ali or Asad Shafiq was averaging 45 or more over the last 2 years, and failing in fewer than 30% of his innings.
But instead we have:
1) Azhar Ali, who is about to be 34 years old, who averages just 32 these last 2 years.
2) Asad Shafiq, who is about to be 33 years old, who averages just 35 these last 2 years.
Mickey Arthur has become more cautious since he essentially lost his job as coach of Australia for axeing Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, Usman Khawaja and James Pattinson for disciplinary breaches.
I can see why he put up with having to carry Misbah and Younis around England, Australia and New Zealand even though they literally failed in 85% of their innings. They were too big to drop.
But Azhar Ali and Asad Shafiq are players who are at an age at which their contemporaries in other countries are being permanently retired.
And they are averaging in the early 30's.
Why are those players - and Sarfraz Ahmed - retained when the Mickey Arthur mantra is that if you are over 30, only one or two of you can be in the team, and only for as long as you perform.
But those three - and Yasir Shah outside Asia - are not performing. Not at all.
