Arthur wants more emphasis on South Africa A

Improving the South Africa A team, and achieving better co-ordination between the senior side and the second tier, will be on national coach Mickey Arthur's agenda when he meets with Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive Gerald Majola in October.

Arthur had met South Africa A coach Gordon Parsons on Monday and will work with the A squad as they prepare for the third one-dayer against Sri Lanka A on Wednesday.

"We need to place a lot of emphasis on South Africa A because that is where the new trickle of players for the national side will be coming from," Arthur was quoted as saying on Independent Online. "Succession planning is obviously very important for the continued health of the sport.

"Ideally we need an incoming tour at the beginning of our season and an outgoing tour at the end of it, but it's difficult for the team to flourish during the season because it deprives our domestic cricket of too many important players."

South Africa's Test team performed impressively during the recent tour of England winning the series 2-1. Their one-day outfit, however, crashed to a 0-4 defeat and questions were raised over the form of several players in the team. Arthur wanted the CSA to appoint a full-time coach under him to look after the A squad in order to co-ordinate a feeder system for the national team.

"The man appointed would have to share my philosophy, and would work with me and separate from me," Arthur said. "It would enable me, for example, to phone him at any time and say, 'who's the next best bowler we can call on?' At the moment the system is too fragmented, so we need to make the structures more watertight. We need to co-ordinate our structures so that I know exactly who is coming through."

Arthur also said that South Africa needed to develop "bigger squads" not only because of the amount of cricket being played but also because of the different versions of the game: Tests, ODIs, and Twenty20.