blockerdave
ICC Chairman
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If They'd Just Dropped Him, We’d Have Been Spared All This Mess
Article by blockerdave
It’s perfectly right that Kevin Pietersen is no longer playing for England, but it was the ECB’s need to settle old scores that created the whole mess English Cricket finds itself in.
There was a case, a genuine case of “cricketing reasons” for no longer selecting Kevin Pietersen for England.
Pietersen was 34, and by his own admission his knee was not up to 4 day county matches, let alone Test cricket in what was a highly intensive summer programme. His career was on a definite downward curve. You can split KP’s England career into 18 “seasons” of English summers and Winter Tours: in the first 9 seasons he averaged over 50 6 times, with a lowest average of 33.66; for the final 9 he averaged over 50 just 3 times, and twice averaged under 30 – 29.00 in his injury-plagued 2009 English Summer, and 29.4 in the final blighted Ashes of 2013/14.
When England asked for and needed their batsmen to play plenty of First Class cricket to overcome the Australian trauma, Pietersen could not do so. Moreover, the emergence of Joe Root, Gary Balance and Ben Stokes, plus the identification of Moeen Ali and Sam Robson as players for the summer gave England the chance to present the 5-0 as a watershed, a true changing of the guard.
A competent regime would simply not select him, and point with justification to his knee and the undeniable fact that England cannot pick for Test Matches someone unfit to play 4 day cricket, whatever their record. Since the knee prevented him from fielding at Gully, and needed a rest, it would equally have precluded him from selection for the World T20.
The knee, the decline, the changing of the guard – three genuine, inarguable reasons to simply not select him, and move on.
Of course, this would have required a maturity, sanity and clarity that the ECB appears utterly devoid of. It would also have prevented the ridiculous selection of Matt Prior at the beginning of the summer, who like KP was unfit and on a downward performance trajectory. Dropped during the Ashes and having done nothing afterward to justify selection, his inclusion was as close as we’ll ever get to an admission from the ECB that Alastair Cook is a weak and ineffectual captain – Prior was there to prop him up. That he needed support even in a young, inexperienced team stripped of the big and polarising personalities of Swann and Pietersen mind-boggling.
What mere non-selection of Pietersen would also have meant, however, was that the ECB, and Flower in particular, would have been robbed of the chance of inflicting the humiliation of the sacking: settling scores going back to the dismissal of Peter Moores (of course making KP the villain of that piece conveniently overlooks neither Vaughan or Collingwood could work with Moores either, and Pietersen took convincing to accept the captaincy in the first place.) It was not enough to simply not select Pietersen, even though there were justifiable reasons not to; the ECB had to let everyone know that Pietersen was beyond the pale: that they could come up with nothing worse than fielding on the boundary and corrupting young and impressionable players like the England T20 Captain indicates that they were out to get him and looking for any excuse.
They had been for some time. Recall the reaction to Pietersen retiring from ODI’s. Not only was there the vindictive insistence from the ECB that he would not be selected for T20I either, but the speculation that it necessarily put his Test future in doubt too. Note that this was a former England Captain, who’d given nearly 8 years’ service, a longstanding knee issue, and a young child to consider. Whatever you think of Pietersen as a player or person, however you suspected his motives regarding the IPL, he deserved much better than that. This ECB briefing and vindictive behaviour towards Pietersen was merely a harbinger of the later incidents of taking private conversations, whether with Flower regarding James Taylor and Michael Carberry or in the infamous team meeting in Melbourne, and leaking them/presenting them as Pietersen destabilising the team.
There has been much bad journalism, and no little bad history this week, mostly on the side of his detractors. In the rush to discredit Pietersen’s every accusation, the anti-KP brigade overlooks that most of these points were already in the public domain:
Four years ago, Nasser Hussain (not noted for his reticence when the fielding was slack) raised with Stuart Broad the issue of fielders being abused by bowlers when making a mistake:
(That Broad’s defence included citing Anderson and Swann was deliciously prophetic in light of later revelations of the powerful bowler’s clique.)
With all the attention on the ECB’s non-leaked non-dossier this week, we should also cast our mind back to another dossier that caused a stir, Justin Langer’s 2009 pre-Ashes dossier on the England side that highlighted among other things:
As for Pietersen’s accusations re the “mood hoover” Andy Flower, try and find any article referencing him that doesn’t contain words like “dour”, “authoritarian”, or “taciturn” – Pietersen was hardly revealing anything earth shattering here.
It’s going to be difficult to ever get to the bottom of textgate, and certainly Pietersen’s behaviour in this regard crossed a major line. Had he never played for England again after that, he could have had no complaints. Whether he sent disparaging comments about Strauss, or agreed with/failed to contradict insults sent to him, only he and the recipients really know. But it surely cannot be seen other than in context with the KP Genius twitter account, which clearly had Pietersen isolated, stressed, and angry: it truly was tough being him in that dressing room. Whether England players had access or not, it’s simply too neat to expect people to believe that a close friend of an England player was behind the account yet not being fed information by that player. The texts may have given succour to the opposition, but did so privately; KP Genius was an attempt to publicly humiliate and alienate a team mate – it should not have been peremptorily swept under the carpet.
We are left with the highly unsatisfactory state that while it’s right that Pietersen isn’t being picked for England, the vindictive desire of the ECB to “get” him is damaging the game. Amid all the leaking, claims and conjecture, only one fact stands clear – the incompetent and dishonest ECB have damaged the game of which they should be custodians.
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.
If They'd Just Dropped Him, We’d Have Been Spared All This Mess
Article by blockerdave
It’s perfectly right that Kevin Pietersen is no longer playing for England, but it was the ECB’s need to settle old scores that created the whole mess English Cricket finds itself in.
There was a case, a genuine case of “cricketing reasons” for no longer selecting Kevin Pietersen for England.
Pietersen was 34, and by his own admission his knee was not up to 4 day county matches, let alone Test cricket in what was a highly intensive summer programme. His career was on a definite downward curve. You can split KP’s England career into 18 “seasons” of English summers and Winter Tours: in the first 9 seasons he averaged over 50 6 times, with a lowest average of 33.66; for the final 9 he averaged over 50 just 3 times, and twice averaged under 30 – 29.00 in his injury-plagued 2009 English Summer, and 29.4 in the final blighted Ashes of 2013/14.
When England asked for and needed their batsmen to play plenty of First Class cricket to overcome the Australian trauma, Pietersen could not do so. Moreover, the emergence of Joe Root, Gary Balance and Ben Stokes, plus the identification of Moeen Ali and Sam Robson as players for the summer gave England the chance to present the 5-0 as a watershed, a true changing of the guard.
A competent regime would simply not select him, and point with justification to his knee and the undeniable fact that England cannot pick for Test Matches someone unfit to play 4 day cricket, whatever their record. Since the knee prevented him from fielding at Gully, and needed a rest, it would equally have precluded him from selection for the World T20.
The knee, the decline, the changing of the guard – three genuine, inarguable reasons to simply not select him, and move on.
Of course, this would have required a maturity, sanity and clarity that the ECB appears utterly devoid of. It would also have prevented the ridiculous selection of Matt Prior at the beginning of the summer, who like KP was unfit and on a downward performance trajectory. Dropped during the Ashes and having done nothing afterward to justify selection, his inclusion was as close as we’ll ever get to an admission from the ECB that Alastair Cook is a weak and ineffectual captain – Prior was there to prop him up. That he needed support even in a young, inexperienced team stripped of the big and polarising personalities of Swann and Pietersen mind-boggling.
What mere non-selection of Pietersen would also have meant, however, was that the ECB, and Flower in particular, would have been robbed of the chance of inflicting the humiliation of the sacking: settling scores going back to the dismissal of Peter Moores (of course making KP the villain of that piece conveniently overlooks neither Vaughan or Collingwood could work with Moores either, and Pietersen took convincing to accept the captaincy in the first place.) It was not enough to simply not select Pietersen, even though there were justifiable reasons not to; the ECB had to let everyone know that Pietersen was beyond the pale: that they could come up with nothing worse than fielding on the boundary and corrupting young and impressionable players like the England T20 Captain indicates that they were out to get him and looking for any excuse.
They had been for some time. Recall the reaction to Pietersen retiring from ODI’s. Not only was there the vindictive insistence from the ECB that he would not be selected for T20I either, but the speculation that it necessarily put his Test future in doubt too. Note that this was a former England Captain, who’d given nearly 8 years’ service, a longstanding knee issue, and a young child to consider. Whatever you think of Pietersen as a player or person, however you suspected his motives regarding the IPL, he deserved much better than that. This ECB briefing and vindictive behaviour towards Pietersen was merely a harbinger of the later incidents of taking private conversations, whether with Flower regarding James Taylor and Michael Carberry or in the infamous team meeting in Melbourne, and leaking them/presenting them as Pietersen destabilising the team.
There has been much bad journalism, and no little bad history this week, mostly on the side of his detractors. In the rush to discredit Pietersen’s every accusation, the anti-KP brigade overlooks that most of these points were already in the public domain:
Four years ago, Nasser Hussain (not noted for his reticence when the fielding was slack) raised with Stuart Broad the issue of fielders being abused by bowlers when making a mistake:
NH: Something else I'm split on, because Duncan Fletcher and I would like team-mates to challenge each other, but what about all this shouting at each other in the field in the full public gaze of the opposition?
SB: We talk about having an open and honest environment because we didn't really have that when I first came into the England side. Everyone has a view and we expect very high standards. That's where you can become a powerful team. When everyone can speak their minds and be honest.
NH: It doesn't create any problems in the dressing room?
SB: No, certainly not. Jimmy Anderson and Swanny are best mates but they're the worst two at going at each other if they misfield.
SB: We talk about having an open and honest environment because we didn't really have that when I first came into the England side. Everyone has a view and we expect very high standards. That's where you can become a powerful team. When everyone can speak their minds and be honest.
NH: It doesn't create any problems in the dressing room?
SB: No, certainly not. Jimmy Anderson and Swanny are best mates but they're the worst two at going at each other if they misfield.
(That Broad’s defence included citing Anderson and Swann was deliciously prophetic in light of later revelations of the powerful bowler’s clique.)
With all the attention on the ECB’s non-leaked non-dossier this week, we should also cast our mind back to another dossier that caused a stir, Justin Langer’s 2009 pre-Ashes dossier on the England side that highlighted among other things:
English cricketers are great front runners… they will be up when things are going well but they will taper off very quickly if you wear them down… This is also a time when most of them make all sorts of excuses and start looking around to point the finger at everyone else
Matt Prior… has a massive ego so I would be reminding him how his keeping could see him out of the team. I would definitely work his ego.
Anderson… can be worn down and his body language could be detrimental to them
As for Pietersen’s accusations re the “mood hoover” Andy Flower, try and find any article referencing him that doesn’t contain words like “dour”, “authoritarian”, or “taciturn” – Pietersen was hardly revealing anything earth shattering here.
It’s going to be difficult to ever get to the bottom of textgate, and certainly Pietersen’s behaviour in this regard crossed a major line. Had he never played for England again after that, he could have had no complaints. Whether he sent disparaging comments about Strauss, or agreed with/failed to contradict insults sent to him, only he and the recipients really know. But it surely cannot be seen other than in context with the KP Genius twitter account, which clearly had Pietersen isolated, stressed, and angry: it truly was tough being him in that dressing room. Whether England players had access or not, it’s simply too neat to expect people to believe that a close friend of an England player was behind the account yet not being fed information by that player. The texts may have given succour to the opposition, but did so privately; KP Genius was an attempt to publicly humiliate and alienate a team mate – it should not have been peremptorily swept under the carpet.
We are left with the highly unsatisfactory state that while it’s right that Pietersen isn’t being picked for England, the vindictive desire of the ECB to “get” him is damaging the game. Amid all the leaking, claims and conjecture, only one fact stands clear – the incompetent and dishonest ECB have damaged the game of which they should be custodians.
Continue reading the Original Blog Post.
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