Tim Bresnan reveals he’s no longer sweet on tweet, unlike England colleague Graeme Swann

Two months ago, England coach Andy Flower warned his players about swearing on the social network site after Bresnan used the f-word in a row on his Twitter feed.

Bresnan is part of England's touring party in South Africa and while his Twitter account has laid idle, Swann has been tweeting regularly on subjects such as Jimmy Bullard's goal celebration, the beauty of Cape Town compared to Bracknell and the perils of pouring tea on cereal.

Seamer Bresnan, though, insists he will be contributing again, once he thinks he has something interesting or funny enough to post. He has not tweeted for five weeks.

"I am still on Twitter. I haven't twittered for quite a long time because I haven't found anything worthy of a tweet," said the Yorkshire player. "If something interesting happens - maybe we see a great white off the beach today - that would be worth a tweet. If you're going to tweet it's got to be humorous or there's no point."

It was jokey comments on Twitter that led to Bresnan landing in hot water during the Champions Trophy. After some light-hearted jibes from Swann and England paceman Jimmy Anderson about him looking overweight, a mocked-up photo of a porky Bresnan were posted by an anonymous follower.

That led to Bresnan snapping as he tweeted: "Don't mind my mates dishing it out but who the **** are you. Crawl out of your basement. U ****."

The 24-year-old had to apologise to his England bosses for losing it but that didn't stop him later labelling Swann and Anderson as the "dip**** brothers" in another post.

Bresnan said of the controversy: "The thing that happened a couple of months ago, that was just me being myself. If someone has a cop at you, you stick twitter twitter 'em back. That's how I was brought up. It's not great in the public eye. If someone punches you, you whack 'em back."

The England team's love of Twitter stems from the Ashes when Swann and Anderson launched into a battle to see who could get the most followers.

Anderson just edged the Twitter tussle, even though he played a pretty straight bat compared to Swann - who covered subjects as diverse as 1980s children's TV and the sounds emanating from a hotel room where a couple appeared to be "enjoying greco-roman wrestling". Swann has continued to tweet in the same vein on his feed Swannyg66, which now has more than 25,000 followers. While the 30-year-old has been in South Africa, he has been keeping his fans amused with his own unique style (see panel below) and has even shared the odd thought on the cricket.

After England's win in the fourth one-dayer over South Africa on Sunday, he wrote: "As the laziest man I know, I consider today to be the perfect game of cricket! Brilliant!"

Sussex are considering their response after an approach from Surrey to speak to Rory Hamilton-Brown about becoming new captain at The Brit Oval.

Hamilton-Brown left Surrey in 2007 and has gone on to establish himself at Hove - he is also under contract with Sussex for the 2010 campaign.

Sussex chairman Jim May said: "This approach is most unwelcome. We have no wish to lose a player of his potential."

Why swanny is tweets ahead in south africa . . .

On X-Factor . . . and the perils of
on-line impersonators

Stacey from X-Factor; half decent looking, thick as pigsh** and Welsh? in bachelor speak known as jackpot'!!

I have been misinformed, apparently she's from Essex. That takes her from jackpot' to tap in'!

Apologies to anyone offended, [Tim] Bresnan stole my phone.

Oh and it wasn't Bres earlier, an unknown source has tapped my account. Be gone you bounder!

On staving off the boredom of touring with computer games and darts

I'm worse at arrows than I was at chatting up Suzie Stevens, the girl from the year above with massive boobs when I was twelve.

Bres could not be a more ridiculously bad sniper on [computer game] Call of Duty. "Low profile" does not mean spray machine gun and lob hand grenade, Tim.

On mixing with the delightful locals in South Africa

A first for me today, I'm being stalked round Sandton by a ladyboy, an actual ladyboy. You can see the adam's apple and everything.

. . . am consoling myself with the thought that it's Jimmy [Anderson] he/she is chasing.

"This part of Jo'burg is safe as houses" said our liaison officer. Round the next corner? bullet-ridden car, news crews, body bags!

On the perils of the early alarm call that comes with England duty

It should be completely against the law to wake this early. So tired I've just poured earl grey on my rice crispies.

And uncomfortable hotel beds on tour
I am stiffer than a Bangkok prison sentence this morning, am getting too old for this . . .