Kevin Pietersen: A Great England Cricketer.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Interesting post Adi. When I was a kid, I'd try and get autographs off Yorkshire players, and that was a tough school. Not just in terms of rejection, but often open rudeness. I remember Boycott, Bird (then umpire) and Bairstow (father) being very surly. I can sort of understand them feeling that way, but it wasn't like I was hassling them in a restaurant, I was inside the ground, during breaks in play. I accepted it as normal at the time, now if I was a parent, I'd be annoyed if my child was treated that way. But these are different times.

SRT does sound like a bit of a saint in this respect. Surely everyone has a breaking point.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Maybe he gave up caring on this last ashes tour?

He did seem to be batting to order for a lot of both Ashes.

[D/L]

Hard to imagine he would have been told to get a few runs and then hole out to midwicket or long-on, for example.

[meninblue]

Interesting post Adi. When I was a kid, I'd try and get autographs off Yorkshire players, and that was a tough school. Not just in terms of rejection, but often open rudeness. I remember Boycott, Bird (then umpire) and Bairstow (father) being very surly. I can sort of understand them feeling that way, but it wasn't like I was hassling them in a restaurant, I was inside the ground, during breaks in play. I accepted it as normal at the time, now if I was a parent, I'd be annoyed if my child was treated that way. But these are different times.

SRT does sound like a bit of a saint in this respect. Surely everyone has a breaking point.

Some cricketers are like that only.

My friend used to repair Sachin's computer. He got the MAC Sachin used as Sachin went for Windows computer. Sachin obliged with his autograph on his MAC .

https://picasaweb.google.com/112659087825954336701/Common?authkey=Gv1sRgCOWDybDf1e2aKg#5979110724327086690

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And all this talk about KP not supporting Cook enough i do not agree much at least on field.Why would he have scored 186 at Wankhede ,especially a match winning knock.Cook was a captain then.If KP had something against Cook then he could have easily got out after securing his place with a smaller knock.
Off the field i don't know.Cook has to explain what he means by lack of trust off field.

[D/L]

...And all this talk about KP not supporting Cook enough i do not agree much at least on field.Why would he have scored 186 at Wankhede ,especially a match winning knock.Cook was a captain then.If KP had something against Cook then he could have easily got out after securing his place with a smaller knock.
Off the field i don't know.Cook has to explain what he means by lack of trust off field.

I can't believe I'm reading that a batsman getting as good a score as he can only does so because he likes his captain! What rubbish.

Cook does not have to explain anything and, contractually, he's probably not permitted to do so anyway.

[D/L]

...Kevin Pietersen is the second highest scorer of hundreds for England. He leaves us with the tenth best England average ever, and the nine ahead of him are legends. He retires with the best average since...

A well written article but full of hyperbole and some inaccuracy, e.g. there are twelve England batsmen ahead of Pietersen in the averages, and they all played in an era where there was no head protection and bats weren't nearly all "middle".

Sutcliffe, H England 54 84 9 4555 194 16 23 60.73
Paynter, E England 20 31 5 1540 243 4 7 59.23
Barrington, K F England 82 131 15 6806 256 20 35 58.67
Hammond, W R England 85 140 16 7249 *336 22 24 58.46
Hobbs, J B England 61 102 7 5410 211 15 28 56.95
Hutton, L England 79 138 15 6971 364 19 33 56.67
Compton, D C S England 78 131 15 5807 278 17 28 50.06
Jackson, F S England 20 33 4 1415 *144 5 6 48.79
Jardine, D R England 22 33 6 1296 127 1 10 48.00
Dexter, E R England 62 102 8 4502 205 9 27 47.89
Boycott, G England 108 193 23 8114 *246 22 42 47.73
Hendren, E H England 51 83 9 3525 *205 7 21 47.64
Pietersen, K P England 104 181 8 8181 227 23 35 47.29 61.71

[Arthur Crabtree]

Off the field i don't know.Cook has to explain what he means by lack of trust off field.

England are in a mess, on and off the field, and they've lost the trust of most of their supporters. This thread is mainly about the career of KP, rather than the current malaise. But I suppose the two are difficult to separate.

[D/L]

Off the field i don't know.Cook has to explain what he means by lack of trust off field.

England are in a mess, on and off the field, and they've lost the trust of most of their supporters. This thread is mainly about the career of KP, rather than the current malaise. But I suppose the two are difficult to separate.

Pietersen's sacking has probably restored more trust than it has lost.

In a while, Pietersen will be largely forgotten and we'll all be discussing other things. I'd concede though that there may be some connection between his career and the current malaise.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Actually, I should have declared that my stats included anyone with more than 3000 Test runs, of whom KP has the tenth best average. I think there has to be a cut off point in terms of runs scored. It's unfair to compare a brief career against one made against the stresses of burn out. I normally exclude runs made against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh (this doesn't really effect KP) but when comparing across time, it's too difficult to rationalise against the weaker sides of past times, say NZ or even India in their earlier years. Other changes in the game mostly even out. The way I sliced it seems fair to me. However you present the figures, they don't really change KP's achievements much. This is the table I was working on.

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine ... pe=batting

[D/L]

Strange it wasn’t mentioned originally and 3000 runs seems quite an arbitrary qualification. The twelve ahead of Pietersen, according to...

http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Batting/BattingAverages.asp

...each played more than 30 test innings (the default setting for the site and enough to form a reliable impression of a batsman’s worth) and none of them played against Zimbabwe or Bangladesh. Some of their careers may also have been shortened by war.

It’s probably worth repeating that they didn’t have head protection and modern bats and also, restrictions on short-pitched deliveries were introduced after many of them retired.

To infer, from these figures, that Pietersen is the 10th best England batsman is rather fanciful, almost as fanciful as the idea that “other changes in the game mostly even out”.

[meninblue]

If we consider his test average in comparison with England cricketers of this era, then it is up with the best . Trott/KP/Cook have more or less similar average. However, comparing with averages of great test players of other teams , he is not in worlds great players list.

Similarly his ODI average of 40 is not that much when compared with that of Trott. Great ODI players of other teams have a much better ODI average.There are many cricketers of other teams who average 40 in ODI's.

Definitely England great, but on world level comparisons he clearly lacks behind in both test as well as ODI formats.Still a successful career as a batsman in tests and ODI.he has had a big enough career in both formats for statistics and sample size to have enough relevance.

[D/L]

Not even an England great, really. Many other batsmen, in far more difficult circumstances, have returned better career figures.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I don't think England have had a world great in my lifetime Adi. We've had some who touched on it for periods: Thorpe, Gooch, Botham, KP, Flintoff, Vaughan, Boycott, Willis, Swann, Gower. But no one to stand alongside people like Warne, Imran, Marshall, Richards... If I praise an England player, I practically always qualify their abilities. If I don't, it's though laziness or forgetfulness.

You have to go back to Laker, Trueman, Hutton, Barrington, Compton etc for the greats.

Flintoff was arguably an ODI great I think.

[KipperJohn]

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.

[meninblue]

Arthur, on first look Andrew Flintoff has very good records in ODI format.