Blog

Daniel Vettori - can I  say because he is so damn hot I want to do dirty things to him? Okay, that's out the way the way -  I can add that his figures are awesome - over 300 wickets and more than 3000 runs in Tests and almost 200 runs in ODIs and more than 200 wickets, hello! His actual figure is also rather, erm...good. He's also the poster child for cool and for geekiness and seems like a right gentleman. His middle name is Luca – that's a pretty cool name. Did I mention that he is hot? He even captains the official Cricket Cute XI, check it out: http://bit.ly/9wVLc3

Ant is South Africa's premiere cricket blogger. You can find her words of wisdom on http://paddlesweep.net/, and on twitter under the soubriquet @mspr1nt

In a shock statement yesterday Mickey Arthur announced his resignation as South Africa coach citing a difference of opinion over the future of the team.  It then emerged that the entire selection panel had been sacked and all this only days before South Africa leave for their tour of India.  Speculation abounded over the reasons behind the shock move with the focus on Arthur's brutal coaching methods.  As previously revealed exclusively on Test Match Sofa Arthur has been known to whip, beat and physically abuse underperforming players. Today Arthur released the following statement:

"It is with great sadness that I have announced my resignation as coach of the Proteas. Despite the proven success of my coaching methods the spineless pencil pushers at Cricket South Africa have queried my approach. People ask me why I whipped Paul Harris with a belt everytime he took fewer than 5 wickets but I want to know how else could I have motivated a bowler that bad to take even a paltry 79 test wickets in 3 years. The same people who presided over Hansie's match fixing have the audacity to wonder why I pounded AB's toes with the toe of a bat everytime he got stumped and shouted "NOT SO TWINKLED TOED NOW, EH?". I gave five years service to South Africa and made them the best cricket team in the world and they want to talk to me about methods? I'm proud of what I achieved with Graeme [Smith, South African captain] and hope that he can keep the boys motivated in India. To that end I saw him yesterday, gave him my favourite belt and wished him all the best."

Cricket South Africa have insisted that they knew nothing of Arthur's methods until an inside source within the team came forward. We here at The Sofa sympathise with Arthur's desire to beat the shit of the South African team and feel he has been somewhat hard done by.