Kevin Pietersen: A Great England Cricketer.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Maybe our best ODI player. He pretty much gets in the team as a batter and a bowler.

[andy]

KP - IMO a very good cricketer, but not a great

[Arthur Crabtree]

KP and Cook would certainly, at the very least, be in contention for a best post war Engalnd side, as would Trott, Swann, Flintoff and Anderson.
Bell now has better stats than Vaughan and is approaching 100 Tests and 7,000 runs, with 20 hundreds - which is not to be sniffed at either.

BTW KP's Ashes series played in - won 4 lost 2 - same as Bell. Not many England players have that on their CV.

Before my time, but maybe Snow as well. I saw the end of Greig, Underwood and Knott, who would get a mention. But none of these would even be discussed for an ATG XI. Probably just among the best of their eras.

[Making_Splinters]

KP would have to compete with the likes of Barrington, Dexter, Compton and Hutton for a spot in the side.

Cook might edge Boycs, but the mighty Amiss still reigns supreme.

[Arthur Crabtree]

KP - IMO a very good cricketer, but not a great

I was careful not to overstate. Seeing as KP retires with an average only Boycott can match since Barrington, (that's 50 years) and with the second most tons ever, and one of our highest ever run scorers, surely he is an England great? Then factor in that he played in two of our most successful sides. If he's not 'an England great' then maybe we've not had one for 50 years. If not, then maybe I can recontextualise; one of the best England players of the past half century.

Apart from Amiss...

[Arthur Crabtree]

KP would have to compete with the likes of Barrington, Dexter, Compton and Hutton for a spot in the side.

Cook might edge Boycs, but the mighty Amiss still reigns supreme.

Going on figures, Dexter might struggle to get in. The others are definites. Possibly May? And Thorpe?

[Making_Splinters]

KP would have to compete with the likes of Barrington, Dexter, Compton and Hutton for a spot in the side.

Cook might edge Boycs, but the mighty Amiss still reigns supreme.

Going on figures, Dexter might struggle to get in. The others are definites. Possibly May? And Thorpe?

I'll not hear a bad word said against Saint Ted, Arthur.

To be brutally honest I'd take the likes of Gower and Smith over any of the current England side. Averaging mid 40s during the 80s and 90s was far tougher than anything the more modern crop ever faced.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Smith was a hero... but he couldn't play spin very well.

Gower was great, but then he played against some woeful sides in the Packer era, and some weak Aussie teams, and didn't excel against the West Indies. And his attitude to the game wasn't great. Gooch was probably the great bat from that era.

[Arthur Crabtree]

KP made runs against the best attack of the century twice, top scoring in 2005 and 2006-7. He averages 45 against SA. He's scored runs in Asia against spin. I'm not making a claim that he's the best of anything really, just that he'll be remembered as a great England cricketer.

Since 1977: Cook, Gooch, Gower, Pietersen, Thorpe, Stewart(w)...

[Making_Splinters]

Smith was a hero... but he couldn't play spin very well.

Gower was great, but then he played against some woeful sides in the Packer era, and some weak Aussie teams, and didn't excel against the West Indies. And his attitude to the game wasn't great. Gooch was probably the great bat from that era.

Gower's time didn't really overlap all that much with WSC which ended at the start of 1980 from memory.

Just think back to the bowlers that lined up to take English wickets during the 80s and 90s compared to those who have since any of the current side have come into international cricket. There's simply no comparision.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Gower started in 78, so he played two years in the Packer era. His average v WI was 32.8. He scored heavily off a number of struggling Aussie attacks. Fair enough, he was also one of our greats, but you know, there are caveats, same as with everyone else. Cook and KP are certainly up with him, in my reckoning.

[Making_Splinters]

KP and Cook are the stand out England bats of the modern generation, but I do always have a nagging doubt about the decline of bowling since 2005 when KP came into the side.

When I think about great batsmen of this era then it's Tendulkar, Lara, Dravid, Kallis, Ponting and Hussey that spring to mind, I'm not convinced that KP or Cook will ever join that list, let alone be offered up to the feet of Barrington, Hutton or Amiss in the post war English pantheon.

[Arthur Crabtree]

But you have to go back to the fifties to find players that may be better, to have played for England. Everyone would recognise Lara, Kallis et al belong in a different class.

Not sure about Ponting. His record over the years KP and he played are pretty similar. I think that matters because the noughties was the decade of the chief executives pitch, and anyone who played the whole of that decade benefits from that. The balance has changed since 2010. I wouldn't have Ponting up with Chappell, Border and Waugh, who belong with the SRTs etc.

[Making_Splinters]

I always get stuck on the huge difference between the bowlers who roamed the fields of the 80s and 90s compared to those that KP and Cook have faced. KP may have come in against a top side, but you can count the genuinely exceptional bowlers of his time on one hand, compared to the probably 20 that the generation before had to deal with.

That's just me, i guess. KP would be at the very peak of England's batsmen this millennium, I'm just not sure about the application of the word great.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Maybe I should have spent more time defining it. I guess I meant among the very best I've seen for one team. It's just a gesture of approval really.

Even back in the 80s, only West Indies really had great attacks. India were often weak, Pakistan changed a lot, and didn't always have great bowlers. There was no SA. NZ's attack was mainly Hadlee a lot of the time. Of course, doing well against WI, especially in WI was a real badge of honour. And I rate Smith and Gooch for doing that. But most of the great bowlers in that decade played for one side.