Mickey Arthur memorable for all the wrong reasons: Brad Haddin

Former Test and ODI wicketkeeper Brad Haddin has slammed former Australia coach Mickey Arthur at current Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur, who also served as coach of the Australian cricket In his newly-released autobiography My Family’s Keeper. The bitterness between Haddin and Arthur began in 2012 when the wicketkeeper took a break from the game to look after his ill daughter.

His unavailability meant that his position as Australia’s No.1 keeper-batsman went to Victorian Matthew Wade. However, Arthur assured him that  he was the ‘best wicket-keeper in the country’ despite preferring to play Matthew Wade ahead of him, a point that Haddin found absolutely bizarre.

Haddin says he shrugged off the first such encounter, after a one-day match in Adelaide in January, but revealed he snapped at Arthur two months later when the coach told him again on the eve of the final Test of the infamous 2013 Test tour of India, in which Wade was selected to take the gloves.

Before the tour of India, Arthur had again told Haddin he was his number one, before opting for Wade, at which point, something snapped in Haddin.

“I’d let it go when he said that in Adelaide but this time it was hard to cop,” Haddin writes of Arthur, the current Pakistan coach who returns to Australia this month for the three-Test series beginning December 15.

“I said, ‘Mate, you’re kidding. I’ve had enough of this. You’ve just told me that I’m the best player in my position and you’re not picking me for a Test match. You’ve got this all wrong. I’m out. Leave me alone.’

“I walked away from him past Nathan Lyon, who’d been within earshot of the whole exchange. He said a quiet, ‘Good work, Hadds,’ as I went by.”