Perhaps not the best time to question Kirsten, but I don't think he's really done anything truly fantastic with South Africa. He inherited a pretty stacked team. Have any of the players really improved under his watch? To my mind, Kallis, Smith, De Villiers, Amla, Steyn, Morkel were all very good when he arrived. Only Philander can truly say he's improved his game a lot recently, Alviro Peterson as well. As for the Test team's results, they beat England in England last year, easily the team's best achievement under Kirsten. They beat Australia in Aus too but were outplayed for a lot of the series - 1-0 flattered them. Australia also drew 1-1 with SA in SA - relatively embarrassing for them I would have thought. They have done well in dispatching Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Zealand in Test series though.
In limited overs stuff...since June 5 2011 (when Kirsten began), South Africa's win-loss ratio in ODIs is 1.30, certainly respectable, but lower than England, India, Australia and Pakistan. Similar story in T20Is where their W/L ratio of 1.12 is lower than Sri Lanka, Pakistan, West Indies and England over the same time frame. They bombed out of the only major international tournament held in Kirsten's tenure, the world T20, unable to win a game in the Super 8s stage. They are currently ranked 4 in ODIs and 6 in T20Is.
In summary...I think South Africa will be fine without him, they have too much talent to dip.
We'll remember Gary as the guy who put South Africa where it *cough*should *cough* be
