The Reintegration Thread

[ParkedTheBus]

No, no. ECB does not look for a captain who is tactically astute, they want someone who can manage things without being controversial. And one more thing to take into consideration is the relationship between the (then)coach Flower and Strauss. They had a very good working relationship

 

[War]

England Cricket News: KP slams 'wholly untrue' Downton comments | ESPN Cricinfo

The more the ECB speak, the more KP looks good.

Whenever full clarity of this distgusting situation becomes a totally clear & if ENG fans are given a choice after hearing the truth between a future of being where one of Cook or KP has to be in the team - i'd rather Cook go & KP come back hands down...

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Bored of this KP spat.

reminds me of when liverpool play man united. can't escape it with the media constantly banging on about it while I just there thinking "i don't care. both sides are arseholes. I don't care who wins or loses"

 

[War]

Bored of this KP spat.

reminds me of when liverpool play man united. can't escape it with the media constantly banging on about it while I just there thinking "i don't care. both sides are arseholes. I don't care who wins or loses"

Based on what we have heard/read since this story broke after the Ashes, i'd say nothing shows KP being an arseholes in anyway.

The ECB are clearly losing the PR battle, while KP looks like he is being turned into a modern day Tony Greig by the ECB hierarchy.

 

[War]

Wife of Simon Jones, lending her voice to the debate on twitter:

https://twitter.com/justinejones1

I will say it again!! When @si610 went through his darkest days @KP24 was the first and only team 'mate' on the phone!!

@KP24 he has been the most loyal, caring and trustworthy England cricketer @si610 has ever played with!! Will never forget!!

@KP24 jealousy is a terrible trait to have, Kev being singled out has been the most destructive sad affair for English Cricket!

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A CRICKETING VIEW: The Pietersen Affair

Brilliant summary!

The Pietersen Affair​

It all began with a denial. Andrew Flower denied the suggestion that he had threatened to resign unless Kevin Pietersen was thrown out of the England squad. This week, Paul Downton said in a BBC interview (download interview) that there was a unanimous feeling in the England camp that the time had come to move on from Pietersen. Downton insisted that there was "no smoking gun" in KP's case, echoing a sentiment expressed by Andrew Strauss in a column in the Sunday Times earlier this year. Everything that happened in between has been a concerted demonstration of contempt towards Pietersen.

The point about the smoking gun is worth reflecting on. Strauss's line was that "[t]he media have been searching for a 'smoking gun'. Everyone is looking for disciplinary problems, bust-ups and character clashes, but they are looking for the wrong thing. The smoking gun is the total absence of trust." Michael Vaughan, on the other hand, wanted Pietersen to be appointed vice-captain because "the management group needs fewer yes men telling them what they want to hear. It starts with the vice-captaincy. It did not work having Matt Prior do the job. Ian Bell is never a vice-captain and the fact they have not made Stuart Broad Cooks deputy shows they do not believe he has any kind of leadership role in Test cricket."

Downton's claim about unanimous feeling fails the smell test. At least three players have publicly said that they didn't think Pietersen was particularly a problem. To make matters worse, Paul Collingwood and Ashley Giles, two former England cricketers who have now assumed coaching roles for England seemed to suggest that KP was an exceptionally valuable cricketer. Graeme Swann wrote that he was baffled by England's decision to sack Kevin Pietersen. This, even though in Swann's view, Pietersen could be "childish", and that "he does upset people wherever he goes". Australian fast bowler Peter Siddle said he was glad England had decided not to pick Pietersen. He went on to describe his approach against Pietersen, which was to try and bore the England batsman. It is the highest compliment that can be paid to a Test batsman. Another England bowler who Australia were always worried about (Steve Waugh has said that Australia preferred to face seam bowlers rather than out and out fast bowlers who could get steep bounce, and gave the specific example of Harmison while doing so), gave an example of the ECB's impersonal corporate methods and expressed his support for Pietersen.

In what is perhaps the most substantive reported account of the proximal cause of the Pietersen Affair, David Hopps describes a "clear-the-air" team meeting called by the England players with the knowledge of the team management (Andrew McGlashan reports that Flower did not know about this meeting beforehand) on the final day of the Melbourne Test. Only the players were present. This was meant to allow the players to speak freely. Pietersen did. What he said amounted to a "an anti-Flower rant".

The contents of this team meeting were reported back the team management, not in the form of a well-organized set of ideas which the players collectively offered as their input from the meeting, but most probably in the form of what the individual opinions were. What is also clear is that while the management agreed to a "clear-the-air" meeting of just the players, the view that some members of the management (Flower) were doing a poor job, was not an acceptable finding.

That the outcome of the team meeting appears to have found its way back to Flower and his assistants piecemeal, is a failure on the part of the organizers of the meeting. Of all the things Cook should have expected at the meeting, disagreement among members of the team should have been the most obvious. That Pietersen, who was reportedly a known critic of Flower's methods would bring such a thing up, should also have been obvious.

If it is in fact true that (1) the meeting was supposed to be for players only so that the players could speak their mind, and (2) what individual players said at the meeting was reported back to the team management including Flower; them it is difficult to see how the organizers of the meeting (Cook and Prior according to David Hopps) had not betrayed their teammates.

Rhetorical rudeness is always penalized more strongly than substantive disrespect (which Cook and Prior demonstrated towards their teammates, if Hopps' account is accurate) and betrayal, provided the latter is carried out with rhetorical politeness. It is one of the more disgusting aspects of the white collar corporate world. But such it is. On the basis of Hopps' account, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Pietersen was betrayed by his captain.

Hopps' account of Pietersen's behavior flies in the face of Downton's understanding of Pietersen's behavior in the Sydney Test. Does a passionate tirade against a coach's methods sound like disengagement? Does the disengagement (which Downton apparently saw on the field) at Sydney surprise you given the fact and consequences of the meeting described above?

It has also been interesting to see how Pietersen's tenure as an England player has been described. Andrew Strauss, Pietersen's former captain, wrote that "[h]is relationship with English cricket has been like an illicit affair. Full of thrills and excitement but destined to end in tears." Mark Nicholas called it "the Pietersen Project" in an essay in which he places Robin Smith's failings against slow bowling, Allan Lamb's love of partying and Tony Greig's decision to play for Kerry Packer as comparable peculiarities about these "men from Southern Africa". The fact of playing for England without being "English", as Nicholas puts it, is not irrelevant to Pietersen Affair.

All this leaves one with the impression that England have thrown away their finest batsman in the last 40 years because other, lesser players, and his team management were not mature enough to put up with his idiosyncracies. Had there been genuine examples of egregious conduct (beyond being rhetorically rude - things like lying, backstabbing, being difficult with a younger player etc.), its inconceivable that the ECB would have held back about it. More importantly, England's massive support staff and corporate leadership are behaving like corporate bosses managing a sport. They are responding to a loss in a sporting contest in the way corporate management might react to an accident in a soap factory. It doesn't help, in this outsider's eyes, that there are journeymen-turned-investment-bankers making these decisions in the very first days of their job, and justifying them with hearsay.

Mark Nicholas concludes his essay with the prediction that one day Pietersen "will wonder why on earth he was so contrary". Perhaps he will. But this is a relatively minor aspect in the matter. What is substantially more significant is the question of the ambitions which drive a sporting organization like the ECB to fire a player for the reasons that Pietersen was fired. Not a single fan who pays the cable or internet subscription to watch cricket, or buys a ticket at the cricket ground, does so to watch Paul Downton or Andrew Flower or any of their 100 or so non-playing subordinates. Neither do fans do it to follow rhetorically polite private team meetings. The fans watch because players like Pietersen play. The ECB and the ICC arguably exist because human beings can play cricket like Kevin Pietersen.

It has been widely reported that a confidentiality agreement exists until October between the ECB and Pietersen, and that this applies to both parties. Downton appears to have violated this agreement at least twice. He commented on the Pietersen situation when Peter Moores was announced as England's new coach, and now he has done so again in a lengthy interview to the BBC. Pietersen has said little so far. His statement in response to Downton's BBC interview has been measured and factual.

Keeping these facts and events in mind, it is hard to avoid the impression that the ECB has been systematically disrespectful and contemptuous of Pietersen. This could be because this is how they genuinely feel about him, or it could be how their behavior, which is motivated by the bad publicity that has come their way as a result of their decision about Pietersen, comes across publicly. Former England captains, current England players and the current ECB chief have all not been shy of commenting about various aspects of Pietersen's conduct, secure in the knowledge that Pietersen would not risk breaking the confidentiality agreement.

This is not surprising given the basic asymmetry in the relationship between employer and employee. The surprising thing in the Pietersen Affair is that there was no disciplinary action against Pietersen during the 5 Test series in Australia. It is not uncommon for teams to discipline errant players. There are well established procedures for doing so. That this was not done in Pietersen's case reflects poorly on the management.

The Pietersen Affair shows up Andy Flower and Alastair Cook in a poor light. They failed to manage their best batsman. This is what they have to answer for. And this is what Paul Downton has to answer for. His decision to fire Pietersen in his first days in the job has been described by David Hopps as bold and controversial. The last four months have shown that it was a bungled decision. What did Downton think was likely to happen if he fired a top player without giving a single reason? Why did he agree to this confidentiality agreement? And why does he systematically disregard it and offer amateurish analyses of Pietersen's batting in the process? On a different substantive note, if Andrew Flower was about to leave, why were his views about Pietersen taken so seriously?

We have heard, and will continue to hear plenty about the standards of conduct that Pietersen fell short of. But what about the standards of conduct that the ECB fell short of? And continues to fall short of? Will there be an accounting of those? Who will provide it? We have heard plenty about Pietersen's allegedly massive ego. What of the ECB's utterly fragile ego, that it has effectively hidden behind Pietersen's teammates to justify its decision to fire Pietersen.

The ECB, in its corporate myopia, has hurt cricket by discarding one of the most accomplished talents of the age in his prime. They have done so by using the sly, underhanded method of using a confidentiality agreement to avoid having to explain anything, and then ignoring this agreement in order to systematically discuss Pietersen's conduct and character without having to account for their own. For this, they ought not to be forgiven. In fact, the Pietersen Affair ought to be about them, and not about Kevin Pietersen.

 

[ste_mc_efc]

Based on what we have heard/read since this story broke after the Ashes, i'd say nothing shows KP being an arseholes in anyway.

The ECB are clearly losing the PR battle, while KP looks like he is being turned into a modern day Tony Greig by the ECB hierarchy.

oh yeah, my opinion is that KP has done nothing particularly to trigger his effective sacking. ECB have mistreated him here, but I have little sympathy for him. the straw that broke the camel's back may not even exist but I don't really care. If it wasn't under so much stress in the first place there wouldn't be an issue.

Reads to me now that Moore#s was locked up as the next coach, that's why KP had to go.

 

[War]

BBC Sport - Kevin Pietersen: ECB apologises over Ashes 'attitude'

SMFH. BRING BACK KP, GET RID OF GILES CLARKE, DOWNTOWN & COOK #

 

[grkrama]

He should sue them for breach of agreement, im sure ECB would have if it was viceversa

 

[War]

Could Jonathan Agnew Be the Next Victim of KP-gate? | Damian Reilly

 

[Skater]

Could Jonathan Agnew Be the Next Victim of KP-gate? | Damian Reilly

"The details of when or how this happened does not concern me. I am not privy to that information, nor should I be. The roar of indignation from some demanding that all the facts be publicly laid bare is absurd and unrealistic, and displays a lack of understanding of how a modern sporting team is supposed to operate, it's code and ethics."

Aggers is correct there. Fans believing they have a god given right to know exactly what happens with the management of a sporting team is absurd.

 

[War]

Aggers is correct there. Fans believing they have a god given right to know exactly what happens with the management of a sporting team is absurd.

I don't thinks critics of the ECB or Aggers defensive of them think that, I certainly don't.

For most of the time under the successful Flower era, nobody really cared about what happened behind the scenes, since ENG were winning.

However no ENG fan understands why KP has been sacked in such a we deserve to right to know why the star player, that we all go to ground to watch & pay cable bills to see on TV, is not being picked.

When October reaches anD both parties can legally talk everything will be out open anyway & that will continue if it ends up court.

 

[War]

England's dressing room in Australia was not a pleasant place to be

I will have no anger, no negative thoughts whatsoever when England walk out without me at Lord's on Thursday to play their first Test since the Ashes. I wish my friends in the England team well. I have moved on from the England and Wales Cricket Board's decision to end my international career and have put things in perspective.


Fourteen years ago, I was an off-spinner from Pietermaritzburg who did not know where his life was going. I had a notion that I wanted to make a life in England, but had no idea if I would succeed.
Now I have played 104 Tests, batted at all the best grounds in the world and been lucky enough to score hundreds everywhere. Could I play more Test cricket? Yes of course, but should I sit here thinking I should be playing on Thursday? No, because that is when jealousy and negative thoughts come into your head.

I am grateful for what I have had and have moved on with my life. I have scored 13,500 international runs for England and it would be greedy to want more, so I am at peace with everything.

It took only a couple of conversations with my family to start thinking this way, because of how much I really did not enjoy the winter.

In fact, it has been a relief to be out of the dressing room because it was not a pleasant place in Australia. We were losing and in my opinion the environment was poor, and I was not alone in thinking that. It is a view shared by a number of the players who have spoken their minds since coming back from the tour.


Now I have had time to reflect on the winter it is clear to me that back-to-back Ashes should never happen again. It was really hard for the England team to go to Australia and defend the Ashes just weeks after winning at home.

As soon as we arrived, the Australian media turned the heat up on us. I have had that for years so it did not bother me. It was fun. But for other players you could sense it was a problem. The senior players were tired and it soon became a really long grind against an Australian side who had their backs up in their own country.

Australia knew they came close to winning here. The 3-0 defeat in England last year was not a true reflection of that series in terms of the way they played their cricket and we played ours, so I knew it was going to be a tight return contest and we were not equipped to handle it.

Mitchell Johnson was sensational on those pitches and he was handled brilliantly by Michael Clarke. Even if he picked up a wicket in his third or fourth over of a spell, Clarke would take him off and save him for later in the day. It was brilliant captaincy. Johnson's bowling was the best and most aggressive I have seen during my career, and I told him so at the end of the Test series when we shared a beer.

By then I thought that Andy Flower wanted me out. After the Sydney Test, a headline came out claiming Flower had said to the ECB it was either "him or me". He denied saying that but the damage was done.

But my relationship with the other players was fine. We had an incredible tour on and off the field. I was helping all the bowlers out with their batting, and the night we lost 5-0 we were all having a drink in the bar together with our wives and girlfriends, which proves all was OK between us and still is.

I have no issue with the players, as many have said in interviews since the tour ended. I speak to Stuart Broad and I even organised for Graeme Swann to go on holiday to one of my friend's hotels after he retired.

On a personal note, I did not score the runs I would have liked in Australia, but I have played a certain way throughout my career and will continue to do so.
There is method to my batting but I play on instinct as well, and I would absolutely play that way again if we could go back in time.

In the first innings at Brisbane, I was caught at midwicket. As soon as the ball left Ryan Harris's hand I thought 'four'. I saw the angle and thought 'bang it through midwicket', but I got caught out. In the second innings, all I tried to do was help a short ball from Johnson to fine leg because it was too tight to pull, but I was caught again.

In Adelaide, I walked out to the crease and felt like I did not know which side of the bat I was holding. I felt that terrible and that is why I was walking at Peter Siddle and playing him on the full.

As soon as I was dismissed I walked out of the dressing room to the nets with Richard Halsall, the assistant coach, and spent 45 minutes trying to figure out how to bat again. I felt that bad, the worst I have ever experienced in an Ashes series.

Why? I do not fully know. But my knee was hassling me a bit. I had an injection a few weeks before and during that innings it was hurting. In the dressing room everyone takes the mickey out of how I bend my knee during my stance because of how exaggerated the movement can be. But in Adelaide, because of the knee pain, I was standing a lot taller in the crease and that changed my game. I said to Halsall and spin coach Mushtaq Ahmed: "I can't bat like that again." I had to work hard to get myself back to playing normally again. In the second innings I made 53 and played very responsibly.

My dismissal in the second innings at Perth has received a lot of attention. I was caught at long on trying to hit Nathan Lyon for a second six. But if I see that ball again, I will still try to hit it for six. No problem. As he tossed it up I thought 'six more there'. If you look at my career, that is how I play. People say it is irresponsible but it was not; it was successful.

Look at the innings that started it all off - the 158 against Australia in the 2005 Ashes at the Oval. I was hooking Brett Lee at 95mph into the stands. Any one of those shots could have gone straight up in the air and been caught. The 186 in Mumbai in 2012 is talked about as the best innings by a foreigner in India. I took risks during that hundred. I am England's leading run-scorer in all forms of cricket because of playing that way.

People say I should have ground it out. Should I? What would have been different?

What I have done during my career is ignore the ridiculous praise and the ridiculous criticism. I have stayed even and been mentally strong enough to keep believing in my methods and what I think is the best way for me to be successful.

It would have been easy for me to start defending a bit more. Would that have made me a better player? No. I am a risk-taker in cricket, in business and all parts of my life.

 

[grkrama]

England Cricket News: Alastair Cook rails at Shane Warne criticism | ESPN Cricinfo

lol isnt he being a bit too precious, a captain who cant handle criticism, he should not even be showing that he is troubled by warne and be talking about srilanka, he is making warne bigger than he is.

 

[IceAgeComing]

He's just annoyed that he fell behind Kevin Pieterson; who spent the test match in the hospitality suites; in the ICC test batting rankings...

 

[abhi_jacko]

I dint listen to the commentary, but it looks like Warne repeatedly called Cook boring and negative, and suggested that he should be replaced by KP (yessssss he should :P ). Is that all ? Or there is more ?

Because this is hardly something a top level cricketer should worry about, let alone the captain of the side struggling with form.