Kevin Pietersen's Autobiography.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I think I heard somewhere that around page 333 KP writes There probably should have been more cricket here.

He didn't say that when he was playing for England.

[Aidan11]

I wonder how KP feels about Abba being played in the dressing room.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Smith's view on the England side is rather interesting, especially considering what went on on their last tour.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/09/graeme-smith-kevin-pietersen-england-bullying

They went far beyond the normal sledging and provocation that summer. So that leaves a bad taste. I suppose they can't have known that the ECB would have reacted so brutally. But SA came out of it poorly.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I wonder how KP feels about Abba being played in the dressing room.

I think if his buddy Graham wants that, then he'll be totally cool about it.

[Aidan11]

Dancing Queen will obviously be a favourite.

[hopeforthebest]

They were not regarded as trouble makers as far as I know. But there you again using the 'comparisons of form when the subject is Pietersen. I should point out that at the end of the ashes series before he resigned, Flower said every player would be required to play CC cricket to prove their worth. Cook scored 386 runs in 3 games with 2 centuries, Bell 506 runs in 4 games with 2 centuries, both Prior and Trott well incapacitated. So the return of Cook and Bell was confirmed by their county form.

Exactly. KP was seen as a trouble maker, which was why he was sacked. It wasn't about runs. And KP wasn't given the option of scoring runs at the start of the season. He was told the team was moving on without him.

Deviation alert!!!!
He was probably sacked because they could afford to miss him whereas those non trouble makers were given the opportunity to prove their worth in the CC. If KP was not seen as trouble maker no doubt he would have been given the same opportunity. That was the point I was making, non trouble makers without runs ( Bell did get 3 centuies in 2013 to KP's one though) versus KP's record as trouble maker without runs.

[rich1uk]

I wonder how KP feels about Abba being played in the dressing room.

depending on your viewpoint it would either be ;

"money, money, money"

or

"i'm a marionette"


but I wonder how long it will be til

"when all is said and done"

[SaintPowelly]

I remember in KPs first book he said something along the lines of "I haven't played as much for Hampshire as I would of liked, but I'll make it up to them in the future with plenty of runs"

Maybe he can spend his non-IPL months as a comic ??

[Arthur Crabtree]

Deviation alert!!!!
He was probably sacked because they could afford to miss him whereas those non trouble makers were given the opportunity to prove their worth in the CC. If KP was not seen as trouble maker no doubt he would have been given the same opportunity. That was the point I was making, non trouble makers without runs ( Bell did get 3 centuies in 2013 to KP's one though) versus KP's record as trouble maker without runs.

The ECB have said it wasn't about performance. As I said, I take them at their worth. I'm not deviating, I'm steering things back to Downton's statement.

[Arthur Crabtree]

One of us is crying
One of us is lying
In his lonely bed
Staring at the ceiling
Wishing he was somewhere else instead
One of us is lonely
One of us is only
Waiting for a call
Sorry for himself, feeling stupid feeling small
Wishing he had never left at all
Never left at all

[hopeforthebest]

AC I think you are acting as Brutus to Pietersen's Caesar.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I stabbed KP last?

[hopeforthebest]

I stabbed KP last?

Sorry I meant Mark Antony.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Mark Antony didn't use repetition, perhaps a little evasion though.

[Arthur Crabtree]

The book has settled into a period of tedium, like the middle overs of an ODI. The big hits have been delivered, and now he is turning over minor slights and misunderstandings. KP comes across now as unable to see other people's points of view and with a trigger happy willingness to take offence. A couple of chapters here might have been jettisoned for perhaps a greatest XI opponents, or a top five cricket grounds of the world, or even a chapter on catering.

While Kevin defends, and expects allowances for, his African openness, he doesn't make allowances for the nuances of others.

Although, ironically, most of those he complains about for their seeming inscrutability were actually born in Africa (Strauss, Flower, Prior)