^^^ struggling to make much logical sense of this.
His betrayal of trust at a confidential team meeting is, iirc, fairly well established from testimony from a number of players, both pro and anti KP, and that alone is reasonably strong evidence that isn't a decent guy, and is a weak leader. You're right that we should be careful about second hand reports in these sorts of situations, but the provenance of this particular piece of evidence seems as strong as we can reasonably expect under the circumstances, and a betrayal of trust is absolutely the antithesis of decency. If we can't consider this sort of evidence then there's little basis for claiming anything about his decency, for or against.
His demand to keep KP out of the team is less reliable but it's circumstantial evidence, and seems a reasonable guess bearing in mind the range of other evidence pointing to the same conclusion.
His behaviour at press conferences is undeniable fact, and it seems inescapably true that saying "something must be done" to prevent further criticism of your captaincy is ridiculous. Defending yourself is one thing, demanding that criticism be quashed is absolutely something else, and it very much speaks to an underlying egocentric feeling of entitlement to his leadership position, and absolutely fits the classic profile of the response of a weak, egocentric leader to perceived challenges to his authority.
His criticism of the ECB decision to drop him before the WC is undeniable fact and fits the same pattern ; his record of failure with the bat in ODIs over a long period is undeniable ; the poor performances of the team under his leadership over a long period is undeniable ; thus his argument that he should have been retained as captain and player in this situation, and his wording of this statement in a way that suggests he was robbed of a job that he somehow deserved to keep despite these clear and obvious failings, is strong evidence of an unreasonable, egocentric sense of entitlement.
These are public statements, and thus primary evidence about the nature of his personality and leadership, and a hypothesis that it is part of a pattern evidencing a distasteful combination of weakness and ego and an absence of decency seems extremely reasonable.
The fact that he loves his family (I mean, wtf evidence is that? Some of the most reviled, murderous people in history loved their families) and seems nice at staged ECB events deliberately engineered to portray him as nice is a weak rebuttal, given the range of evidence against this conclusion.
Whether he's nice in his private life when under no pressure of perceived threat to his authority is another matter. I'm not commenting on his private affairs, although the fact that he enjoys shooting animals is something I find personally distasteful, and not much of an endorsement of his powers of empathy or spirit of fair play.
Now, I have a strong dislike towards AC, but this is another level. I deconstructed about three to four reasons that you've given in your post and I'm going to try reason with you.
1) I see you're in staunch defense of KP, but I need to remind you that his reintegration was a doing of AC. It was he who wanted KP in the side for the betterment of English cricket. Now, there are a plethora of versions as to what happened in the 5-0 Ashes series down under and I've said before that KP was hard done. However, let's not kid ourselves. He did cross a serious serious line when South Africa were in England. His
continuous falling out with different sets of management is pretty much proof of it. Let's not get to the 'learn to manage mavericks' episode with Michael Vaughan etc. because KP was a nobody when all that was happening.
From what I've said above, I'm not trying to make Kevin look like the antagonist, I'm simply saying that he had his share of wrong doings and patience simply ran out in the upper levels of the ECB. It might be wrong or right. I don't know. Nobody does. What I do know is that Cook alone can't be blamed for it.
2) His behavior at PC's? I think he did a mighty fine job of dealing with Shane Warne. It's pretty naive to believe that Warne didn't have a personal interest when he was slaughtering AC. He's very good friends with Michael Clarke. When England were about to go down under, they were favorites. Michael Clarke wasn't looking all that great. In fact, his job was on the line. Shane Warne was merely playing his buddy up, putting his counter part down and the English media ate all of it. I'm not saying that AC wasn't poor with his tactics. But, Warne was literally saying that it was MC and his captaincy as well as AC and his inabilities that won the Aussies the Ashes 5-0. If you just notice, Nasser Hussain (who I think is the best pundit in the world) and Shane Warne were doing a piece on legends of the game on air on Sky on Day 1 of the test, he brought MC up in the same bracket as Lara, Tendulkar etc. He also brought MC up in the Rhodes, M Waugh bracket when it came to fielding. I'm glad he didn't bring him up when they were discussing great spin bowlers, probably because his own name was in it. If I can find it annoying and outright biased being an Indian with less to do with English cricket, I don't blame Cook for 'asking something to be done about it.' I think, it's fair to say that the media plays a massive role in the mindset of cricketers these days. The Aussies did everything in their power to make sure England were rattled. I don't think even the Aussies knew that England would eat all of that up and so fast.
Again, I respect your posts and your opinion but I'm just throwing in another perspective. I do share your view of Cook's negativity, but to the degree it's been made out to be? I don't quite agree. I may have, but like I said, there's another side of the coin. Hell, screw the Ashes. How many England captains have come to India and owned them? Who was the last?
3) His exclusion from the ODI's was the correct decision. He didn't take it well. He's always proved to be very stubborn about things. It's hard for a sportsman to accept he's not good enough. Pretty tough to think that the guy will end up with 150 odd tests but never have played a World Cup. I don't think his outburst was 'that' bad. You have players moaning all the time about stuff like that.
As for what he eats or who he sleeps with? I think that's a personal thing. I do judge on stuff like that and I'm not shy about it. But, honestly ask yourself, would you prefer a beer with Cook or one of those Aussies? You could get a few of those KP secrets out you know?
On a serious note, I can totally imagine 11 mirrors in the Aussie dressing room with each going.. 'Mirror Mirror on the wall, who's the nastiest of them all.'
Lastly, like I've reiterated many times in my post, I respect your opinion, share some of it as well but disagree to the extents of them.
[DOUBLEPOST=1437129495][/DOUBLEPOST]I'd bring Mark Wood in for Clarke. Ask him to bowl full and straight. Have a bat pad and use the short ball as a surprise.
. Not quite bat pad but square leg will do.
