Author Topic: Pietersen's going...gone. (Read 3673 times)

andyoxon · « **on:** 04 February, 2014, 06:56:53 pm »

Quite surprising, though not really in some ways...

Kevin Pietersen: Batsman's England career over
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/26040475

Andrew · « **Reply #1 on:** 04 February, 2014, 07:26:20 pm »

I can't say it overly surprises. Whilst he's undeniably talented, if not sometimes a little sporadic and perhaps even unreliable, he does have seem to get people's backs up. I've suspected for sometime that he's probably tolerated more than respected, or liked even, in the dressing room.

hatler · « **Reply #2 on:** 04 February, 2014, 07:31:24 pm »

Ooooo. I didn't see that coming. At least, not until Flower's replacement was named. Even then, I'm still surprised. (Though this would have been my decision. Too unreliable at times of real need.)

mattc · « **Reply #3 on:** 04 February, 2014, 07:36:00 pm »

Quote from: Andrew on 04 February, 2014, 07:26:20 pm

I can't say it overly surprises. Whilst he's undeniably talented, if not sometimes a little sporadic and perhaps even unreliable, he does have seem to get people's backs up. I've suspected for sometime that he's probably tolerated more than respected, or liked even, in the dressing room.

Sounds about right.

Despite not revealing too much in interviews, he's clearly a complex character. With a really smart coach (or agent, or ... something!) he could perhaps have fitted in a little better and had a truly magnificent test career. Some clever psychology required though - rare in everyday sports management.

Peter · « **Reply #4 on:** 04 February, 2014, 08:09:14 pm »

I think they're wrong. It's an admission that they are not very good at handling difficult characters - not that it's easy! I expect it's the way of things that whichever county he plays for will win the championship this season. I hope Durham have a big enough chequebook!

toontra · « **Reply #5 on:** 04 February, 2014, 08:28:30 pm »

Boycs will be quietly pleased!

Pietersen's been so divisive in the England setup it's amazing he wasn't ditched a long time ago. He's an extremely talented player but eminently unsuited to a stable team - much better off plying his trade as a bat-for-hire in the shorter format international stage.

bobb · « **Reply #6 on:** 04 February, 2014, 08:29:57 pm »

Stupid, knee jerk decision. Who knows what might happen in a year or two? Plenty of players have played on until they're much older than KP is now. To say "You're never playing for Engalnd again" before you've even appointed a new coach seems utterly ridiculous to me.

I can only assume he called the ECB cunts. Or something....

Deano · « **Reply #7 on:** 04 February, 2014, 08:36:48 pm »

Aye, it's a shame. He was one of the last of the great swashbuckling Vaughan team, and I reckon England were better off with him (even if it was a Pietersen-specific definition of "with") than without.

Von Broad · « **Reply #8 on:** 04 February, 2014, 10:15:45 pm »

Well.....he has his detractors and he has his problems, but [being a man who tries to see a glass more full than empty these days], he's also played some really incredible match innings for England, that many could only dream of [most of them watching from the pavilion at the time too].

Alan Shearer comes to mind. Don't ask me why, but he does. I remember when the knifes were out for him. All of a sudden he becomes the reason were England were in decline. Really? You don't say. 'If only we were dropped from the team, all would, be well once more'. When players like that get to the end of their career, all of a sudden they become scapegoats, and the cry goes up, 'if only we could get rid of so-and-so, he's the problem, all would be better. And.... how many times have seen this?....it never is.

So, like the reign of Andy Flowers, I'd like to give thanks for Pietersen. He's been around for a while now. Sometimes, he's been really brilliant, a world apart from the rest, absolutely fantastic.

Jaded · « **Reply #9 on:** 04 February, 2014, 10:21:44 pm »

Certainly a batsman to fear, until his weakness(es) were targetted.

Seems premature to me, given the ostensible lack of new talent coming up.

ferret · « **Reply #10 on:** 04 February, 2014, 10:29:01 pm »

about time, it's all very well being an individual & a bit different but there are times when the individuality has to be reigned in and the game played for the team, this is something KP has always had problems with, at least now he's free to go and play in the IPL like he wanted too. It was also pretty obvious that Flowers was going to go no matter what he may have thought.

Andrew · « **Reply #11 on:** 05 February, 2014, 08:34:11 am »

I've just heard the remarks of Jonathan Agnew on radio 4. I think they put the decision into a different context.

Basically; sod the dressing, look at the way he got out in Aus - he was playing for himself. As to 'managing' him, Aggers says it's been tried and it hasn't worked.

Si · « **Reply #12 on:** 05 February, 2014, 03:38:59 pm »

I wonder if they have done it so that the new coach doesn't have the task of sacking him as his first bit of action and thus brings a whole new heap of controversy down on his head before he's had a chance to do anything?

Although, having said that, if Giles gets the job then I'd have thought he'd have wanted his mate KP to stay. Maybe that's why they've sacked KP now - because they know that Giles wouldn't?

Anyhoo, I agree with Peter up thread - that he couldn't be 'managed' correctly is a sad reflection on the upper echelons of the staff as a whole. Vaughan quote: "For me, the hardest thing to manage was his haircut! "

Von Broad · « **Reply #13 on:** 05 February, 2014, 09:02:58 pm »

Quote from: Andrew on 05 February, 2014, 08:34:11 am

Basically; sod the dressing, look at the way he got out in Aus - he was playing for himself. As to 'managing' him, Aggers says it's been tried and it hasn't worked.

I would like to have heard somebody say to Aggers that playing for himself was actually a better shout than what some of the others were doing - some of the crazy shots played by some of the other players were neither playing for themselves or for the team, they were just crap. A lot of players played a lot of bad shots. Pietersen probably just got sick and tired [quite wrongly of course] of coming in and being asked to 'build an innings' yet again, compensating for the abysmal performance of the openers. He's not an opening batsman, never has been, If you want your No 4 batsman to be an opener....then play an opener instead. Pietersen scored 294 runs in 10 innings during the recent Ashes series - not great, but also higher than any other England player. Eh?

It's also worth noting that selfish Pietersen, only ever playing for himself and ignoring the fortunes of the team, earned himself a test average of 47.28 from 104 tests. Not that great you might think, but take a closer look and that's an average higher than other notorious players - people like [just randomly off the top of my head] Ian Botham, Mike Gatting, David Gower, Alan Lamb, Alex Stewart, Michael Vaughan, Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Strauss, Mike Atherton and on and on.......it's an average higher than virtually every other player from the past 30 years who have played the same number of tests. The only person above him that I know anything of is a certain Mr G Boycott, who comes in at 47.72 from 108 tests. As the Americans are so fond of saying - go figure.

The next player that comes to take guard at No4, if they are to compete with those kind of stats then he's going to be some really, really incredible player. Look forward to that.

Anyway, that goodness they are no other issues to address with any of the other ten positions in the team

God, I hate scapegoating.

Jakob · « **Reply #14 on:** 05 February, 2014, 10:53:56 pm »

Quote from: Bodger on 05 February, 2014, 03:38:59 pm

Anyhoo, I agree with Peter up thread - that he couldn't be 'managed' correctly is a sad reflection on the upper echelons of the staff as a whole. Vaughan quote: "For me, the hardest thing to manage was his haircut! "

Pietersen was still a rookie when he played under Vaughn and as such much easier to manage.
Once he thought he was bigger than the team, it was always a losing cause.

Peter · « **Reply #15 on:** 06 February, 2014, 01:15:45 am »

With luck, English cricket will soon have the services of more South Africans who can't get in their 1st XI. But it'll have to be someone very special to appeal to the public the way Pietersen did. There have been many fine English batsman in my longish memory but very few made the pulse race the way Pietersen did when he came in to bat. Before him the last one was David Gower, then Derek Randall, Colin Milburn, Alan Knott and my first batting hero (yes, it's true) Fred Truman.

It's to do with flair, I suppose. There are some good prospects in the current team but there's about as much flair as a baked potato.

I'd always rather watch Coppi or Merckx than Wiggins or Froome, however superb the latter two are.

madcow · « **Reply #16 on:** 06 February, 2014, 03:07:15 am »

Many people labelled Boycott as selfish , singleminded and lacking in vision as well.
When looking at his biog there is a piece about Beefy Botham conspiring to get Boycs run out , allegedly under orders from Bob Willis, because Geoffrey was being selfish and scoring too slowly.

The Ashes debacle was spectacular team failure, so how Flowers and Cook thought they would escape scot free and let KP take all the blame is beyond me. But they seem to have done enough to deflect some of the blame onto the player who scored the most runs and away from them.
Seems to be a Cook vs Pieterson fallout more than anything else.

Wowbagger · « **Reply #17 on:** 06 February, 2014, 07:47:32 am »

Boycott was famously dropped for slow scoring, IIRC just after he had scored a double century. That was before Botham was on the scene, though. I think Cowdrey was still captain.

hatler · « **Reply #18 on:** 06 February, 2014, 08:18:39 am »

I'm sure I recall hearing Botham explain that his first task on his England debut was to get GB run out. But my memory isn't infallible (!)

Peter · « **Reply #19 on:** 06 February, 2014, 08:27:42 am »

Oops! I missed out Botham from my list of exciting batsmen!

Jaded · « **Reply #20 on:** 06 February, 2014, 08:36:56 am »

Being part of a team requires a certain amount of self-management.

Sometimes being impossible to manage leads to being managed in this way.

madcow · « **Reply #21 on:** 06 February, 2014, 08:41:30 am »

This is the incident. This was the year after his 100th Test century.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/604169.html

Andrew · « **Reply #22 on:** 06 February, 2014, 08:58:56 am »

I seem to recall reading (and it might have been in an interview with Agnew on the BBC web site) that nobody in the England team would say a bad word about KP.... publicly. Off the record, it was a different story. And from this morning's radio reports, the vote to ditch KP was unanimous - board, selectors, whoever else concerned. That, to my mind, say a great deal (though about what, I'm not sure!)

KP, whatever his talents, is clearly doing something wrong. I don't think it's scapegoating and I think it's something more than the usual big-headed dressing room ego. I think the limit has been reached with him. I'm sure the stories and reasons will out as time goes by.

ferret · « **Reply #23 on:** 09 February, 2014, 11:35:47 pm »

One thing that is getting up my nose is all the TV & radio presenters and media are jumping up and down demanding they be told why the ECB have kicked him out, I don't think it has anything to do with Joe Blogs how the ECB run things, if they want to let us know why they will release a story when they're ready.

Deano · « **Reply #24 on:** 09 February, 2014, 11:44:01 pm »

Quote from: ferret on 09 February, 2014, 11:35:47 pm

One thing that is getting up my nose is all the TV & radio presenters and media are jumping up and down demanding they be told why the ECB have kicked him out, I don't think it has anything to do with Joe Blogs how the ECB run things, if they want to let us know why they will release a story when they're ready.

Huh? It's not as though it's a matter of national security.

Sure, the media are probably hoping for them to crack and announce "we ditched Petersen cos he was an arrogant prick", but that doesn't excuse the ECB, who have been pretty terrible for years. Dropping the batsman who has the best record in the team certainly deserves more of an explanation than has been offered so far.

Author Topic: Pietersen's going...gone. (Read 3673 times)

Andrew

Andrew

Jakob

Andrew