Let's forget Peterson and move on. His batting average for last few years is well below that for Bell, Root and Ballance. Leaving one of them out would not make sense as a batsman let alone the twat factor.
We're not saying that any of the 3 you mention should be dropped. KP can be accommodated with them all. Certainly, without looking at the stats, i know that KP was second behind Bell (who had an incredible series)in the last Ashes here and was top run scorer in the abysmal series last up in Oz. Jeez, how many more stats do you need to try to discredit the man ??!! What is it in this country that we have to villify the guy with talent .
Vilify the guy with talent? Really? Who's vilified Anderson or Root, for example. Nothing to do with his talent, all to do with his personality, words, and actions.
Unfortunately, the guy with talent often comes with a 'personality' , think Gazza,Suarez,Warne and countless others. Now, i dont care what sort of a 'personality' he has if he is going to score runs that means we have a chance of beating Oz - he's there to win a Test match, not pass a bleedin Psychological Assessment Test.
Kevin Pietersen: My fury at England deceit Exclusive: The truth about devastating meeting that ended my Test career By Kevin Pietersen 7:41PM BST 12 May 2015
I am absolutely devastated that it looks like my hopes of an England recall have been brought to a close, especially given everything that has been said and asked of me.
I had a meeting with Andrew Strauss and Tom Harrison at a hotel in London on Monday night. I expressed my fear to Tom last week when he asked for the meeting that I did not want to sit in a room and be told that I was not going to be picked for England again.
I have been down that route before and I knew I would be in the middle of a game for Surrey which would need my whole focus and concentration.
Tom said: “No, no, no you have had one of England’s greatest careers and we need to work together." So, of course, I agreed to the meeting.
I have never hidden my determination to once again represent England and having played one of the best innings of my career earlier in the day, I must admit I was riding the crest of a wave.
Yet it now looks clear Tom knew exactly what Strauss was going to tell me. I messaged Tom after the meeting and asked him why he got me into a hotel knowing precisely what I was going to be told and having already explicitly asked him if that was going to be the case. “You talk about trust,” I said. He simply replied: “I am sorry you feel that way, Kevin.”
They have used the word trust to justify not selecting me, well, trust is a two-way thing. I couldn’t believe just half an hour after I had my meeting, the result of it was on the internet and on the BBC airwaves. Now I certainly didn’t tell anybody, so who did? They say they don’t trust me but how can anybody trust them?
I went into the meeting expecting Strauss to say that England’s batting order is good at the moment but if I continued to score runs and if an injury occurred then I would be in contention to play. I would naturally have to earn my recall, but at least I would be eligible. But no. Quite simply, I feel deeply misled. Tom has tried to say that Colin Graves was misrepresented by the media when he said there was a way back for me.
I'm afraid, as everyone can clearly see, this is the biggest load of rubbish. I had two phone conversations with Colin Graves and he was crystal clear in saying I had to get a county, score runs and that there was a clean slate. He said that when he comes in as chairman he wants the best players playing for England. He told me that on the phone in two separate conversations. He also repeated it to national newspapers.
I have done everything I can. Was I lied to by the chairman? Only he can answer that. Tom Harrison and Andrew Strauss have said today that all three of them are united in this decision, so I don’t know what to think.
What has happened since Colin told me if I scored county runs I would be available for selection?
Nobody has called me. I have given up my IPL contract, at great expense, to play in county cricket. Surrey did not have any funds free to pay me so I said I would play for nothing, just a donation to charity, and it is horrendous to feel I have been led down the garden path. They knew all along this was a dead end for me.
I am angry and hurt but right now there is nothing I can do about it. Strauss will be judged on his results. Yet I have heard from two very good sources that results do not matter this summer anyway. The job description for the director of cricket job is focused on longer-term goals.
But if Strauss has been told he does not have to win this summer then why should the players train and work hard? In essence, quite incredibly, they have all been given permission to lose the Ashes. I have never heard that before. It is not in my make-up and I know it is not in the make-up of the English public either. Especially for those who have paid a lot of money for tickets.
It is an absolute disgrace if that is their mindset. Is this the reason Strauss got that job, because he would accept those conditions? Michael Vaughan and Alec Stewart certainly would not.
It is true that after telling me I did not have a future for England, Strauss offered me the chance to sit on his advisory panel. But I told him to forget it. How can he in one sentence say we cannot trust you and then in the next try and say we want you to be on a board because you have such a wonderful cricket brain?
At that point I asked: “Who doesn’t trust me? You have a new chairman, a new CEO, we have spent the last 10 minutes sorting out our differences like adults. Let’s go through the batting order.”
I rattled off names. He could not give me any names. He said it is a broader thing and not just the players.
I accepted that Alastair Cook and I need to sort a few things out. But I thought we could manage that and Strauss is in a position to facilitate it happening. It is his job to ensure Alastair and I could do that.
I asked him if he thought that a new coach not being able to pick perhaps his best team was the right thing to do for the fans. Especially in an Ashes summer against a tough Australian team, who we’ll have to be at the top of our game to beat. He started throwing statistics around.
I said: “Please do not sit in a meeting with me, telling me I can’t play for England and start lobbing stats at me to justify it.”
I just find it incredibly deceitful what has happened to me and am frankly finding it difficult to understand right now. I have done everything I have been asked. I keep asking myself, what more could I do?
Under the agreement of releasing me from my IPL contract, Sunrisers Hyderabad have the right to recall me for the final stages of the tournament, so on Friday – at their request – I’ll be travelling out to India. It’ll give me a good opportunity to cool down and assess what I'm going to do next. I'm just sorry it won’t be putting on an England shirt.
I don't know whether the team would play better with KP in it, but it's a shame that grown men can't sort this shit out to at least leave the door ajar.
As much as KP is a bit of an idiot, the stance against him is idiotic.
If KP's version of events is true, it's pretty shit but I think his decision to not be involved in the ODI set-up was a mistake, but probably one made emotionally.
I don't know whether the team would play better with KP in it, but it's a shame that grown men can't sort this shit out to at least leave the door ajar.
As much as KP is a bit of an idiot, the stance against him is idiotic.
If KP's version of events is true, it's pretty shit but I think his decision to not be involved in the ODI set-up was a mistake, but probably one made emotionally.
Good sensible post. As much as we all know KP is one up his own jacksie knob, he is also one of our best batsmen. You would have thought someone elevated to Strauss's level would have had the skill and acumen to be able to accommodate him. I bet Mike Brearley would have sorted it out . In actual fact, always wondered why he never got a similar role in the England set-up before?
I don't care if Pierterson is a plonker - he is a world class player when the England team is woefully short of world class players. It makes me angry that Strauss has allowed his personal feelings to influence what should have been a no brainer. English cricket has gone bad and the problem is clear. I said from the very beginning but Cook should never have been given the choice as to whether he wanted Pieterson - but the minute he said he didn't he should have been sacked. Being England captain and representing your country (us by the way) means you play your best players. You don't act like a spoilt child and rfeuse to play with somebody because they have upset you and/or you don't like them. These pratts need taking down a peg or two.
Joe Root named Test V/C and Eoin Morgan to continue as ODI captain.
A very good move. Let him gain a bit more leadership experience this summer. I feel very confident that Root will be England test captain for the series after the Ashes so the vice captain experience this summer will do him good
Now I am no cricketing expert, I don't have any knowledge of county cricket at all but if everyone was confident about England's chances in the tests over the summer then KP would be much less of an issue?
Have the ECB written off the tests, is it a learning curve? I guess we'll maybe beat NZ but surely not the Aussies.
I implied in an earlier post that Strauss would mention 'look to the future' as the excuse for KPs exclusion and that he wouldn't give the real reason. Turns out it sounds even more pathetic. Although, damned if he does...... I guess.
Nearly every commentator I have heard and read though reckon (although not directly in support of KPs reinstatement) that from his sacking, it's been one big fuck up by the ECB.
I love the way KP has come out as being so hurt by the deceit of the ECB. Perhaps he now knows what it must have been like for Strauss to try and captain a side when one of his team was texting information about the team (let alone calling his skipper a XXXX). And what it's like to be told that you're not good enough to play for your country.
KP has consistently run away and blamed everything else for abandoning his situation:
South Africa - he blamed the quota system for deserting his homeland.
Notts - he blamed the pitch for leaving the county.
Hants - he blamed the fact that he wanted to be in London for his departure.
England - he blamed Moores for his sacking.
Surrey (and England development role)- he blamed his IPL team for invoking a clause that has made him go and play for them.
Trust is a two way street. The only thing you can trust about KP is that everything he does is designed for the benefit of one person and one person only.
As many have said you don't have to like a team mate to play with him. But you have to trust him. And there is a difference.
Trust him to do what exactly?? He's not babysitting my child. It's all so over the top.
Trust him not to stab you in the back. Not to tell you and anyone else who cares to listen before on your debut for your country that you're not good enough. Trust him not to tell the opposition what your team's plans are. Trust him not to call the captain a XXXX whilst playing with him.
And before we all become guilty of believing the hype surrounding his "career defining" innings against probably the worst county championship side ever to play in England (they haven't won a CC match for 36 matches with the last one being in 2012) on the road that is the Oval, let's look at what he achieved when he last played for England:
In 2013 he batted 23 times against NZ and Australia and scored 757 runs including just one hundred. That's an average of 32.91.
So that was two years ago when he was 33. How exactly does that justify an England recall?
Fiery ? .. a nickname given to Fred Trueman that Boycott hijacked when he was trying to make a name for himself .. just as 'the corridor of uncertainty' is a Benaudism nicked by Boycott .. Boycott .. the great 'nicker' .. ((:>)
Fiery was given to Boycott by Brearley, Willis and Botham. The corridor of uncertainty was not nicked from Richie Benaud either.
source?
if my memory serves me right Boycott was referred to a "Fiery " by Brearley in the "Botham 1981 test series" it definitely mentioned in "phoenix from the ashes" and Willis and Botham went along with it
If you run a business that invests £30m a year in order to deliver the best results possible, wouldn't you want every member of that team pulling in the same direction?
And if that team had one star man - say the top sales person - you'd want to keep him. Unless, of course he disrupted the rest of the team, gave away company secrets to competitors, bad-mouthed colleagues, published articles criticising the rest of the team, refused to participate in all the training sessions, demanded better treatment and terms than the rest of the team...
And, if at the same time, the company's profits were tumbling, but you had a lot of really good trainee staff members wanting to step up into senior positions, but felt their way was being hampered...
If all that happened, wouldn't you feel justified in letting him go?
Am i reading it right that Strauss doesn't trust KP to play for the team, but has offered him a senior role within the set-up?
An advisory role within the One Day Team. That is where his recent success has been.
But, at the end of the day, I think Strauss, the ECB, KP, Uncle Tom Cobley and all knew that he was never going to accept this. Not big enough for his ego or his bank account. Not when he has IPL and Caribbean contracts already in place.
Am i reading it right that Strauss doesn't trust KP to play for the team, but has offered him a senior role within the set-up?
An advisory role within the One Day Team. That is where his recent success has been.
But, at the end of the day, I think Strauss, the ECB, KP, Uncle Tom Cobley and all knew that he was never going to accept this. Not big enough for his ego or his bank account. Not when he has IPL and Caribbean contracts already in place.
Of course he wasnt gonna accept it. What a piss take.
Yeah we don't like you enough to play with our ball, but you can run and collect it when it goes over next doors garden.
Am i reading it right that Strauss doesn't trust KP to play for the team, but has offered him a senior role within the set-up?
An advisory role within the One Day Team. That is where his recent success has been.
But, at the end of the day, I think Strauss, the ECB, KP, Uncle Tom Cobley and all knew that he was never going to accept this. Not big enough for his ego or his bank account. Not when he has IPL and Caribbean contracts already in place.
Of course he wasnt gonna accept it. What a piss take.
Yeah we don't like you enough to play with our ball, but you can run and collect it when it goes over next doors garden.
Not as much a piss take as telling everyone that you've given up your IPL contract to play for Surrey when you haven't. There again, another bit of KP being somewhat economic with the truth.
really not sure why all the fuss anyway ...Pietersen hasnt played the longer form cricket at a high level for a longtime and wont improve ,infact he would have gone backwards ...making big scores against Leics and Oxford University is the equivalent of Wayne Rooney scoring successive hatricks against wimbledon and cheltenham for example
I just don't understand the "he's the best batsman we have" comments. That might have been the case a few years ago but he just isn't anymore (granted I'd probably accept he would be in limited overs). Scoring a shed load against Leicestershire doesn't mean he is but I do find it amusing everyone pointing to that innings screaming "look look" yet won't make a reference to his other county championship innings this season. His form in all formats over the past 3 years has been patchy, flashes of what he once was but clearly not able to do it on a consistent basis.
The England test side have not really been struggling to score runs or score them at a fast enough pace since he left. As I said before someone from the top 6 would have to be dropped to accommodate him. So who would you do that to? And wouldn't that be completely unfair and demoralising to that player who has been there throughout and not running their mouth off to whoever will listen yet they would be dropped for someone who has done all that.
I'll agree with anyone who wants to argue that the ECB have handled the situation poorly. I won't however ever agree that KP deserves a place in the test side.
oh and by the way hes a useless fielder ...which is a 3rd of the game
infact you can tell alot about team ethics by peoples attitude in the field and pietersen is a renowned fumbler /fails to apply himself in comparison to his colleagues
Although KP said that as a condition of them releasing him from the main contract they had the right to recall him if made knockout stages.
He only revealed that yesterday.
Which is why he made the comment that he thought Strauss was going to say that the existing batsmen are playing well enough but as soon as one of them fails he'll be in.
But how would all of this affect his Caribbean contract? Might he have to miss more of England's games?
Comments
Kevin Pietersen: My fury at England deceit
Exclusive: The truth about devastating meeting that ended my Test career
By Kevin Pietersen
7:41PM BST 12 May 2015
I am absolutely devastated that it looks like my hopes of an England recall have been brought to a close, especially given everything that has been said and asked of me.
I had a meeting with Andrew Strauss and Tom Harrison at a hotel in London on Monday night. I expressed my fear to Tom last week when he asked for the meeting that I did not want to sit in a room and be told that I was not going to be picked for England again.
I have been down that route before and I knew I would be in the middle of a game for Surrey which would need my whole focus and concentration.
Tom said: “No, no, no you have had one of England’s greatest careers and we need to work together." So, of course, I agreed to the meeting.
I have never hidden my determination to once again represent England and having played one of the best innings of my career earlier in the day, I must admit I was riding the crest of a wave.
Yet it now looks clear Tom knew exactly what Strauss was going to tell me. I messaged Tom after the meeting and asked him why he got me into a hotel knowing precisely what I was going to be told and having already explicitly asked him if that was going to be the case. “You talk about trust,” I said. He simply replied: “I am sorry you feel that way, Kevin.”
They have used the word trust to justify not selecting me, well, trust is a two-way thing. I couldn’t believe just half an hour after I had my meeting, the result of it was on the internet and on the BBC airwaves. Now I certainly didn’t tell anybody, so who did? They say they don’t trust me but how can anybody trust them?
I went into the meeting expecting Strauss to say that England’s batting order is good at the moment but if I continued to score runs and if an injury occurred then I would be in contention to play. I would naturally have to earn my recall, but at least I would be eligible. But no. Quite simply, I feel deeply misled. Tom has tried to say that Colin Graves was misrepresented by the media when he said there was a way back for me.
I'm afraid, as everyone can clearly see, this is the biggest load of rubbish. I had two phone conversations with Colin Graves and he was crystal clear in saying I had to get a county, score runs and that there was a clean slate. He said that when he comes in as chairman he wants the best players playing for England. He told me that on the phone in two separate conversations. He also repeated it to national newspapers.
I have done everything I can. Was I lied to by the chairman? Only he can answer that. Tom Harrison and Andrew Strauss have said today that all three of them are united in this decision, so I don’t know what to think.
What has happened since Colin told me if I scored county runs I would be available for selection?
Nobody has called me. I have given up my IPL contract, at great expense, to play in county cricket. Surrey did not have any funds free to pay me so I said I would play for nothing, just a donation to charity, and it is horrendous to feel I have been led down the garden path. They knew all along this was a dead end for me.
I am angry and hurt but right now there is nothing I can do about it. Strauss will be judged on his results. Yet I have heard from two very good sources that results do not matter this summer anyway. The job description for the director of cricket job is focused on longer-term goals.
But if Strauss has been told he does not have to win this summer then why should the players train and work hard? In essence, quite incredibly, they have all been given permission to lose the Ashes. I have never heard that before. It is not in my make-up and I know it is not in the make-up of the English public either. Especially for those who have paid a lot of money for tickets.
It is an absolute disgrace if that is their mindset. Is this the reason Strauss got that job, because he would accept those conditions? Michael Vaughan and Alec Stewart certainly would not.
It is true that after telling me I did not have a future for England, Strauss offered me the chance to sit on his advisory panel. But I told him to forget it. How can he in one sentence say we cannot trust you and then in the next try and say we want you to be on a board because you have such a wonderful cricket brain?
At that point I asked: “Who doesn’t trust me? You have a new chairman, a new CEO, we have spent the last 10 minutes sorting out our differences like adults. Let’s go through the batting order.”
I rattled off names. He could not give me any names. He said it is a broader thing and not just the players.
I accepted that Alastair Cook and I need to sort a few things out. But I thought we could manage that and Strauss is in a position to facilitate it happening. It is his job to ensure Alastair and I could do that.
I asked him if he thought that a new coach not being able to pick perhaps his best team was the right thing to do for the fans. Especially in an Ashes summer against a tough Australian team, who we’ll have to be at the top of our game to beat. He started throwing statistics around.
I said: “Please do not sit in a meeting with me, telling me I can’t play for England and start lobbing stats at me to justify it.”
I just find it incredibly deceitful what has happened to me and am frankly finding it difficult to understand right now. I have done everything I have been asked. I keep asking myself, what more could I do?
Under the agreement of releasing me from my IPL contract, Sunrisers Hyderabad have the right to recall me for the final stages of the tournament, so on Friday – at their request – I’ll be travelling out to India. It’ll give me a good opportunity to cool down and assess what I'm going to do next. I'm just sorry it won’t be putting on an England shirt.
As much as KP is a bit of an idiot, the stance against him is idiotic.
If KP's version of events is true, it's pretty shit but I think his decision to not be involved in the ODI set-up was a mistake, but probably one made emotionally.
As much as we all know KP is one up his own jacksie knob, he is also one of our best batsmen. You would have thought someone elevated to Strauss's level would have had the skill and acumen to be able to accommodate him. I bet Mike Brearley would have sorted it out . In actual fact, always wondered why he never got a similar role in the England set-up before?
Once that hits their pockets there will be more changes to come but probably too late for KP.
Surely a good manager, who ever it is, would be able to at least try to sort this mess out.
He's not even in the team and he's still the biggest problem.
Have the ECB written off the tests, is it a learning curve? I guess we'll maybe beat NZ but surely not the Aussies.
I implied in an earlier post that Strauss would mention 'look to the future' as the excuse for KPs exclusion and that he wouldn't give the real reason. Turns out it sounds even more pathetic. Although, damned if he does...... I guess.
Nearly every commentator I have heard and read though reckon (although not directly in support of KPs reinstatement) that from his sacking, it's been one big fuck up by the ECB.
KP has consistently run away and blamed everything else for abandoning his situation:
South Africa - he blamed the quota system for deserting his homeland.
Notts - he blamed the pitch for leaving the county.
Hants - he blamed the fact that he wanted to be in London for his departure.
England - he blamed Moores for his sacking.
Surrey (and England development role)- he blamed his IPL team for invoking a clause that has made him go and play for them.
Trust is a two way street. The only thing you can trust about KP is that everything he does is designed for the benefit of one person and one person only.
As many have said you don't have to like a team mate to play with him. But you have to trust him. And there is a difference.
And before we all become guilty of believing the hype surrounding his "career defining" innings against probably the worst county championship side ever to play in England (they haven't won a CC match for 36 matches with the last one being in 2012) on the road that is the Oval, let's look at what he achieved when he last played for England:
In 2013 he batted 23 times against NZ and Australia and scored 757 runs including just one hundred. That's an average of 32.91.
So that was two years ago when he was 33. How exactly does that justify an England recall?
And if that team had one star man - say the top sales person - you'd want to keep him. Unless, of course he disrupted the rest of the team, gave away company secrets to competitors, bad-mouthed colleagues, published articles criticising the rest of the team, refused to participate in all the training sessions, demanded better treatment and terms than the rest of the team...
And, if at the same time, the company's profits were tumbling, but you had a lot of really good trainee staff members wanting to step up into senior positions, but felt their way was being hampered...
If all that happened, wouldn't you feel justified in letting him go?
But, at the end of the day, I think Strauss, the ECB, KP, Uncle Tom Cobley and all knew that he was never going to accept this. Not big enough for his ego or his bank account. Not when he has IPL and Caribbean contracts already in place.
Yeah we don't like you enough to play with our ball, but you can run and collect it when it goes over next doors garden.
i moved on a long time ago
The England test side have not really been struggling to score runs or score them at a fast enough pace since he left. As I said before someone from the top 6 would have to be dropped to accommodate him. So who would you do that to? And wouldn't that be completely unfair and demoralising to that player who has been there throughout and not running their mouth off to whoever will listen yet they would be dropped for someone who has done all that.
I'll agree with anyone who wants to argue that the ECB have handled the situation poorly. I won't however ever agree that KP deserves a place in the test side.
But how would all of this affect his Caribbean contract? Might he have to miss more of England's games?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/32720069