SkateBoarder2 said:
He's been replaced by Kevin Pietersen, who in my opinion is too cocky and always trys to smash the ball to the boundary, which is not the way to play Test cricket.
He played very sensibly at The Oval though, didn't start going after the bowling until he was well in. Plus, it wasn't until we really could risk going after the bowling that he and Solanki did, and they did it supurbly!
There is also no doubt that he can handle pressure. Lets not forget his performance out in South Africa, he had thousands upon thousands of fans booing him, slagging him off, then the 11 players on the pitch doing the same thing. Yet he hit 3 magnificant hundred's, all in losing situations.
Whilst it maybe would have better to have started with Thorpe, I feel that it changes the mentallity of the team. Playing Thorpe is a more defensive move, i've seen many comments along the lines of 'oh, but when we're 50/3' or whatever. Thats a very negative way of thinking, sure, we may well be 50/3 at some stage, but at the same time we could be 100/0. Australia could be 50/3 at some stage in the series, you won't find them thinking 'oh, we're in trouble here'. To be winners you need to be positive and have confidence in every member of your team. Our strength is to play positive cricket, lets not suddenly go into this negative frame of mind, otherwise we're beaten before the series starts.
On the Pietersen ahead of Thorpe issue itself, i'm not sure which is the right option. But what matters now is that its Pietersen playing, so lets look for the positives in that and not the negatives.
