Pietersen's test career over

[EddieB]

Story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/26040475

 

Ok, he had a tendency to lose concentration and do silly things, but probably the greatest natural batting talent we've had for some time.  Lessons have to be learned and remedial action taken after the Ashes whitewash, but this does seem rather drastic.  After all, it was basically the same team that retained the Ashes last Summer.

[multiprinter]

Unless something happened in Australia that hasn't been disclosed I find it reprehensible that it seems he is being made the scapegoat for England's dismal displays.

[Mike Bellamy]

Andy Flower left last week as well so are they both scapegoats then ?

[iak]

Think about it.

Flower falls on his sword whilst KP in essence gets fired.

Of course something has gone on but KP has form for being a disruptive daftie mind.

Talented he is but sooner or later this was going to happen. He was going to be a fool once too often...

[mow]

KP must be looking forward to a contract with IPL. 

[aussiebrfan]

Unless something happened in Australia that hasn't been disclosed I find it reprehensible that it seems he is being made the scapegoat for England's dismal displays.

 

Dont forget he was texting his saffer mates about how to get Strauss out and then got dropped when it all came out. Traitors arent usually tolerated in sporting teams.

[Barry O]

If you have to fire someone because you can't manage them then you shouldn't try and be the boss.  Strange this decision when we don't have a coach manager so which ECB person decided this?  Or is it a priority so that they can get Mr Moores back??

 

Bad time for ECB to be doing this - new team trying to stamp authority on the "team" - a new team required so I take it Anderson, Prior etc are next for the chop??

[t-b-g]

Didn't he score more runs than anybody else on the recent disaster down under?

 

So we are giving our most prolific and most recently successful batsman the elbow.

 

There must have been something behind the scenes that we know nothing of for that to happen.

 

I have always thought of him as being a bit on the arrogant side. That is OK when the team is winning but I wonder if that sort of attitude has caused problems in the dressing room when things are not going so well. 

 

It is not as if we have a great string of suitable replacements lining up for his job, certainly not players with the ability to turn a game around single handed, which KP has shown that he can do from time to time, although not so much recently.

 

If he has played his last match, it is a sad way for his England career to end. I would have thought that perhaps a last series on home soil, allowing the fans the opportunity to give him a decent send off, would have been the least he deserved for his huge contribution to England cricket. Rather like the Indians did for Tendulkar.

 

KP has come back before and I can imagine a situation where a new coach will realise that he still has something to offer and will want him back on board. The test team is still more interesting when he is batting than it is watching anybody else.

 

Tony 

[Kev_Lewis]

About bloody time!

 

The stats speak for themselves, KP is one of the most talented batsman ever to play for England.

 

However, he is not a team player. The amount of times he gets out going for glory, rather than looking at the scoreboard, knuckling down, and staying at the crease, defies belief. More and more over the last few years it appears to me that his head just isn't in the game.

 

It is definitely time to bring on new talent, and there is plenty of it in this country. The ridiculous situation we have with all the England cricketers being on central contracts has kept the same has beens in the squad for far to long.

[PhilJ W]

At least he only got himself out, I am old enough to remember a certain England batsman who used to get his partners out and hog the wicket without scoring many runs.

[t-b-g]

At least he only got himself out, I am old enough to remember a certain England batsman who used to get his partners out and hog the wicket without scoring many runs.

 

He scored plenty. Just very slowly!

 

Would his sort of player have made a difference this winter in Australia? An anchor at one end to let the shot players take on the bowling in the pretty sure knowledge that they won't all fall like a pack of cards?

 

A batsman that can regularly bat all day wouldn't go amiss in the present set up. We have players who can do it once in a blue moon and when they do, we usually win. They just don't do it often enough.

 

Tony

[Tase]

Good riddance to him. At the start of his career I thought he was a breath of fresh air in the England team but over time he became more and more big headed, petulant, arrogant, greedy and divisive. No man is bigger than the team he plays for and lot of professional sports players would do well to remember that. So I for one won't miss him one iota. Let's continue the cull and bring in some high quality young players.

I suppose the one benefit of all this for Pietersen is that he can continue his mercenary pursuit of cash in the IPL and other domestic T20 tournaments.

[t-b-g]

Good riddance to him. At the start of his career I thought he was a breath of fresh air in the England team but over time he became more and more big headed, petulant, arrogant, greedy and divisive. No man is bigger than the team he plays for and lot of professional sports players would do well to remember that. So I for one won't miss him one iota. Let's continue the cull and bring in some high quality young players.

I suppose the one benefit of all this for Pietersen is that he can continue his mercenary pursuit of cash in the IPL and other domestic T20 tournaments.

 

All sports and walks of life have their "flawed genius" types.

 

Things would be a lot duller without them.

 

When you look at what cricketers earn compared to the over hyped cheating divers and con merchants who get paid massive wages for playing football, I wouldn't begrudge him a nice lucrative spell in the IPL to set him up for retirement. 

[jwealleans]

A batsman that can regularly bat all day wouldn't go amiss

We did have two, last time we toured Australia, Cook and Trott.  Personally I'd have been happy to see Cook step down from the captaincy if it meant he'd recover some form.  I don't see any other candidates pushing up behind him, though. 

 

I do hope Trott recovers sufficiently to take his place again, although I can't help thinking of Trescothick and all that lost potential.

 

I wonder if we are starting to see the real reasons  - perceived or actual - for the abject performance this winter.  If Pietersen has become a scapegoat, he's talented enough to walk away and fulfil himself on another stage.  If he really is the root cause of the side disintegrating, then maybe getting rid of him is the road to rebuilding.  It doesn't say much for the other 10 blokes, though.

 

I had to smile at the 'he was the leading run scorer in Australia this winter' - 290 runs, average 29.  So being the least worst performer is suddenly a positive?

 

What would be interesting is if England continue to score poorly - and they have been poor for about 18 months, not just this winter - while Pietersen scores a million runs in the County Championship and against the touring sides.  Will whoever's in charge be big or brave enough to invite him back?

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

...When you look at what cricketers earn compared to those who get paid massive wages for playing football...

You are putting your finger on the greatest problem for cricket. The innate ability required to make a top class cricketer pays off a lot better if it can be applied to football, tennis or golf. The latter two not constrained by team considerations, and none of them by five days of acute boredom at regularly recurring intervals.

[pointstaken]

A disruptive influence in a team means it is no longer a team, just a collection of individuals. Part of the explanation for our poor showing ?

 

Dennis

[t-b-g]

 

 

 

I had to smile at the 'he was the leading run scorer in Australia this winter' - 290 runs, average 29.  So being the least worst performer is suddenly a positive?

 

 

Not much of a positive but he did do better than everybody else.

 

The point I was making was not that he was good in the ashes but that all the other batsmen did worse than him.

 

If you were a struggling football team and you had one striker who was at least scoring an odd goal here or there, you would need to have a decent reason for dropping that striker rather than the others. That striker causing dissent in the dressing room and spoiling team spirit would be one such reason.

 

I was just wondering if there was more to it than just lack of form for the decision to drop him now.

 

Tony

[jwealleans]

Actually, Tony, I was thinking of the general media coverage rather than your post, although I wasn't clear.  It also struck me that in the coverage I heard this morning the only talking head they could find to overtly defend Pietersen and call for him to be reinstated to the team immediately was that noted former international cricketer and all round expert, Piers Morgan.

 

I was just wondering if there was more to it than just lack of form

 

I think you've put your finger on it and I expect when the first books start to be published it will trickle out.

[EddieB]

Well something is certainly amiss in the England camp - and I don't mean Dennis (Amiss).  One of our weaknesses - even when we were on a winning streak - was the fragility of our batting when things started to go wrong.  Plenty of guys can amass a big score when things are going well for the team, but a couple of wickets go down early on and the very next thing we're on the verge of a batting collapse.  The best sides have always had at least one player who could stabilise an otherwise poor team performance - Graham Gooch was certainly that, but Australia had such players aplenty (and often unsung ones like Ian Healy).  Pietersen had the talent, but not the concentration to fill this role, but no reason to be sacked just for that reason.

 

Secondly we suffer consistently from loss of form by our captains.  Is there something else going on - and that might point towards the selectors, the board or others - besides the rest of the team?  Somehow I get the impression that when there's trouble in the camp the "suits" don't act to support the captain and the coach with enough alacrity.

 

Players breaking down or pulling out of an Ashes tour is hardly a new phenomenon, think also Graham Thorpe a few years ago.  Perhaps we should always have a Plan B ready on major tours.

 

It seems obvious that Pietersen has been dropped for reasons other than his performance, unless he steadfastly and outspokenly refused to play an anchor role when required.  Once again problems appear to have been allowed to fester until a series has finished, then acted upon with a heavy hand.  I'm not saying Pietersen's dropping isn't justified, more that it points to other issues that appear to be swept under the carpet and which can only continue to be harmful to team morale in the long term.

 

Finally, like the military, we seem to reorganise our cricket team on the basis of fighting the last battle again.  Who we next face will pose a different set of technical challenges to Australia.

[DLT]

Sacking Peitersen so completely and suddenly, and BEFORE the new coach is appointed, clearly shows that he's been made a scapegoat.  We went through all this with Ian Botham in the 1980s, cheering a guy to the rafters when he's winning matches single-handed, but then expecting him to do that all the time and having a total downer on him as soon as he's NOT winning matches single-handed. 

 

Pietersen was top scorer in Australia, he contributed far more than Prior or Anderson (both of similar age), but have THEY been sacked?

He got out to some silly shots, but so did everyone else.  And expecting him to play like Geof Boycott is as ridiculous as err, asking Boycott to play like Pietersen.

 

Ashley Giles is the front runner for the new coach job, and he is a big fan of Pietersen.  Sacking Pietersen now removes Giles' option to select him.

 

Totally underhand.

[Tase]

Pietersen was top scorer in Australia, he contributed far more than Prior or Anderson (both of similar age), but have THEY been sacked?

I suspect those two won't be far behind either...

[Barry O]

Kp is an attacking batsman. Asking him to bat like Boyce is not going to work, his skills aren't the kind to do an anchorman job and then he gets frustrated and out..so that was down to poor management and captaincy. No doubt he has made that clear so had to go to dare to say anything..

 

There isn't a pool of big hitting talent in the UK so who do you pick?

 

Cook needs to resign from captaincy -it has affected his form and he has no cricketing strategy in his head. Problem then is ..who takes over...?

 

The new management team need to look hard at the bigger picture.. Getting rid of kp is not solving the bigger problem in English cricket..

 

And England players while not earning the greatly over inflated wages of the top flight football fraternity do get paid reasonably well....

[jjb1970]

KP is a brilliant batsman but he has a history of being a disruptive element within the team, sacking him is a form of managing somebody who damages team performance by their own behaviour. Sad and he is one of the worlds most entertaining batsman when on form and is seldom boring, but in the words of that ghastly cliche, "there is no I in team" and one batsman doesn't make a team. However a loose canon individual can destroy a team. I know this is speculation but I felt he was a part of the reason for the ending of Andrew Strauss's captaincy, a thoroughly decent guy and a good captain of England.

[Revolution Mike]

I think part of the issue is we don't know the full story - has KP's behaviour worsened on the recent tour? If not then it is very difficult to see what could justify his sacking.

 

For all this talk of him not being a team player - is that really an issue? Cricket in many ways is different to other team sports in that it is a combination of team work and individual performance - batting even more so than other aspects as it really is about an individual. The best managers find ways to work with the exceptional but difficult talents (of which there can not be any doubt that KP is both!).

 

A sad time for English cricket and it doesn't solve the problems (nor would getting rid of Jimmy or Prior, though Prior should be more at risk).

[Barnaby]

Disgraceful.  It has set me thinking whether I'll watch cricket any more, certainly not with the present team if the rest remain.

Yes I think some rebuilding needs to take place but I would keep KP along with some of the newer lads that got a go later in the 1-dayers.

Cook WAS a good batsman but never much of a captain his on field decision making was bewildering just sadly not enough to knock the Aussies out of their stride. 

 

I remember Will Carling him of rugby fame once saying the RFU was run by "old farts" he was sacked the next day but got reinstated a few days later maybe the same quote could be levied at the ECB by KP and may have been done so.  Who knows then if enough people grumble he too may get reinstated.

 

Regards