By Kenneth Davison

South Africa is an amazing country. There is no denying it; there is just so much this country has. We have amazing weather, despite all the rain but at least it is still warm, we have some wonderful game parks and great scenic views. But the one of the things I love the most is that there is always controversial and entertaining news. And this news is usually located in the politics section, which I discovered is better than the comics section, or in the sports section.

Imagine my surprise on Monday morning when I was told that Mickey Arthur had resigned. I didn’t see it coming, I wasn’t too aware of anything really bad. Granted, he has had a tough year but I didn’t think it was that atrocious that it warranted being sacked. Then I was reminded that he wasn’t sacked, he resigned! This means that something happened that he was very unhappy about.

I remember a few years back when Norman Arendse, then president of Cricket South Africa (CSA), opened a can of worms when he tried to force the team to select Gibbs ahead of McKenzie. Arthur and Smith stood their ground and managed to get McKenzie into the team. McKenzie responded by batting in a World record opening partnership. But having seen Arendse a few times, I certainly believe that he is a tough man and to get past him you need to be ultra tough.

So something happened that really got to a man who survived some bad moments in the past. Then the anti-Smith group saw this as an opportunity to get back into Smith. They have been silenced due to their most hated man doing so phenomenally well and winning series’ in England and Australia. Arthur resigning was their big chance to get back at Smith. Some people didn’t like him when he took over, they will probably still not like him when he retires as the best captain we have ever had.

The anti-Smith group probably went back to their pits to sulk when Smith and Arthur sat together and told us all that they were good friends and got on. Sure, they had disagreements over the fourth test. But if you told me that was their first and only disagreement, I would say you are lying to me.

Then the big shock on Tuesday was that the entire selection panel was fired. Not one or two guys, all of them. And Craig Matthews, one of the selectors, says he didn’t see it coming. I don’t think any of them did. But a decision like that reeks of something, and I have a worrying feeling that that something is political.

Since Arthur resigned, Corrie van Zyl has been appointed caretaker coach. That means he will make sure the guys train until someone else is hired. And I hope they don’t be like India who felt they didn’t need a coach and then suffered before hiring Gary Kirsten. Corrie has brought in Vincent Barnes and Kepler Wessels to help him. But the big surprise to me was that Gerald Majola, current CEO of CSA, was going to act as convenor of selectors. That to me is the alarm bell ringing that something foul is afoot.

I realize that Majola has done the job before and he has done well as CEO of CSA, but to fire everyone and then take over is interesting to say the least. If there is a political agenda, he can now push it if he needs to. I don’t think we will find out very easily what the agenda is, unless there is an expose rivaling Athletics South Africa. But I wonder if all this has a lot to do with Makhaya Ntini being dropped?