The former Head Coach of Pakistan Mickey Arthur will perhaps go down as one of the most loved foreign coaches of the country. His involvement with the players and his sheer passion and determination earned him a lot of fans in Pakistan.
  
Arthur was appointed Head Coach of the men in green after a disastrous ICC World T20 campaign in 2016. He took over his role towards the latter half of the year 2016 and was relieved from his job after the disappointing conclusion of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019. 
  
In his three-year coaching history with Pakistan, Mickey produced outstanding results in limited-overs cricket coupled with some memorable Test series' victories as well. Mickey's overall win/loss ratio across three formats is 56% whilst he enjoyed 81% success rate in T20Is. He had a 50% success record in ODIs and 35.7% in Test matches.
  
Under Mickey's supervision, Pakistan's biggest achievements were claiming the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 and maiden Test series victory against West Indies in West Indies. 
  
He recently joined cricket statistician Mazher Arshad for a candid video session and talked about his journey with the national team of Pakistan. While talking in the interview, Mickey shed light on Sarfraz Ahmed's captaincy skills and why he believes the former captain of Pakistan should be in the T20I team of Pakistan.
  
"Sarfraz is an unbelievable T20 captain. He reads the game in T20 cricket so well and he was instrumental in bringing the T20I team of Pakistan to the top. After Sarfraz's removal, we saw a huge slump in the confidence of the players that resulted in disappointing performances," he said.
 
Arthur was also caught heaping praise on the middle-order batsman Haris Sohail who played a couple of match-winning knocks in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019.
  
"Haris played the game against West Indies and the batting line up flopped badly in that match. We wanted to have an experienced player in the middle-order that's why Shoaib Malik came in. Sohail came back against South Africa and played a brilliant knock at Lord's. In fact, Haris' innings against New Zealand was equally good but it was completely overshadowed by Babar Azam's brilliant 100," he added.
 
The current Head Coach of Sri Lanka was also asked about his love affair with Pakistan and Arpthur feels that his love for Pakistan is pretty well documented.
  
"I do love Pakistan and I have said it many times that Pakistan is very dear to my heart. I met some great friends during my stay and met some amazing people. I still talk to a lot of people from Pakistan. Those three years of my life were very special and well documented," he added.
 
When asked about his top five all-time greatest batsmen and bowlers, Mickey opted for some of the legendary players of the game including Barry Richards, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Jacques Kallis and Michael Clarke.
  
"I grew up watching Barry Richards and he was my idol. Having coached against Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli, they both are incredible. I also worked with Jacques Kallis and he was amazing. I am very inclined to add Babar Azam to my all-time greatest batsmen list but, I think he still has a long way to go. Another player that I enjoyed watching was Michael Clarke and I thought he had a lot of time while playing," Arthur said.
 
Mickey's all-time greatest bowlers list includes Wasim Akram, Allan Donald, Malcolm Marshall, Dale Steyn and Shane Warne.
  
"Bowlers that I watched closely are Wasim Akram and Allan Donald. I played a lot of cricket with Donald and he was simply amazing. I loved watching Malcolm Marshall and I also had the privilege of facing him and he was a really handy customer. I will also include Dale Steyn in my list of all-time greatest bowlers and the best spinner I have seen is Shane Warne," he said.
 
At last, Arthur was asked about the development of Babar Azam under his supervision and how he wanted him to play across all three formats.
  
"Babar Azam is now an all-round package and he's performing incredibly well across all formats. In 2016, we knew that Babar is a very good white-ball player and he needed improvement in red-ball games. I was criticized heavily for playing him regularly in Test matches because he was failing consistently at the start," Mickey added. 
  
He also stated that he wanted Azam to play each and every game that he coaches and he made sure that the young batsman never sits out. 
  
"We knew that Babar Azam had the skills and ability required to succeed at Test level that's why we pushed him a lot and persisted with him in the longer format as well," he concluded.