Mickey Arthur - Coaching Genius

One day in to our STBO campaign, Mickey Arthur has come out with an absolute humdinger.

Over at cricinfo, Firdose Moonda has asked whether cricket's perennial nearly men, the Jaapies, will win the tourney.

Moonda, no fool, has identified that South Africa are at home in this tournament. And this is not wasted on Arthur either. Nosiree.

"We are extremely comfortable with the two venues the tournament will be played at (Supersport Park, Centurion and The Wanderers, Johannesburg)," said Arthur. "We've had some good results at both stadiums in the past and we receive lots of local support there as well."

Let's look into this shall we? First: they are extremely comfortable with the venues. No. Really? You don't say. Is he hinting that if they had picked, let's say, Lords or the MCG there might be slightly less of an advantage? He continues mentioning that they have had some good results there. You'd hope so. Given they will have played more games there than any other side and, Wickman's guessing, some of the players may even play for clubs that use these grounds they would have, from time to time, scraped a couple of wins. Finally, and this is where Arthur is simply head and shoulders above his coaching rivals, he identifies that they receive "lots of local support there as well".

Wickman is in awe - AWE of his intellect. This makes Buchanan's use of Sun Tzu pale into insignificance and Fletcher's Forward Press look like just another trigger movement.

[Here's Mickey about to deliver a strategic gem - Ed]