Kevin Pietersen's Autobiography.

[sussexpob]

Hi Idlebrain. I go two ways on the IPL. I think the senior players should have been given a little leeway to allow them to play in it. They all wanted to, and as far as I recall, only Cook hasn't put his name forward. But, given he had an England contract, KP could hardly complain if he was expected to be available for all England games. He might have been accommodated better, and arguably, that would have made the situation better. But he was hardly wronged. However, this disagreement led the ECB to try and protect their central contracts by damaging Pietersen's reputation. To destroy his credibility. Which did a lot of harm, and set a pattern for how the press would go on treating him. And led to the events of 2012.

His chapter on the IPL is awful. Full of faulty reasoning, barely credible assumptions, self pity and a lack of understanding of the feelings of others. For example, others might have been jealous of his contract, but wouldn't that make you want to keep quiet about it, to protect them from a feeling of inadequacy? Apparently not. As a player who had played many years for England though, I think the ECB might have given him (or Swann, or Bell) a little bit of what they wanted.

Probably ECB might not have thought it would be a good idea - especially given KP's superstar appeal in IPL coupled with his obvious love of IPL and their own aversion to IPL / BCCI those days. Probably from the ECB's PoV, thats a dangerous path with no guarantee that there would not be further demands down the road, ultimately resulting in players wanting to become freelance a la Gayle, Bravo etc. (Admittedly slim chance for a board like ECB with strong revenues).

Incidentally, now that BCCI & ECB are working closely in the new setup, I am curious to see how this affects ECB's attitude vis-a-vis IPL (and the participation of English Players in IPL). Perhaps the next edition of IPL in 2015 might give some clues on this.

The issue is avoided somewhat, simply because hardly any of our players who play test cricket are wanted by the IPL, and the ECB arent going to stop others go

[Aidan11]

The question is what does KP do when his playing career is over?

It's unlikely anyone will trust him now in cricket. Can't see him joining Sky or TMS.

Probably go to SA to coach?

[Gingerfinch]

England coach

[Aidan11]

England coach

I'd pay to see that happen.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I have a feeling once the dust settles KP is going to be a forgotten man.

Well there is something predictably humiliating in this in that the ECB can scheme and manipulate and isn't touched by the consequences. Pietersen is left to ramble on about how unfair the world is, to little effect.

[idlebrain]

Initially Mentor and then Coach of an IPL Team! and probably will be part of the ESPN-Star Sports Commentary team!!!

[Arthur Crabtree]

I think he has stuff already. An academy, and a part of a sports management company.

[idlebrain]

Hi Idlebrain. I go two ways on the IPL. I think the senior players should have been given a little leeway to allow them to play in it. They all wanted to, and as far as I recall, only Cook hasn't put his name forward. But, given he had an England contract, KP could hardly complain if he was expected to be available for all England games. He might have been accommodated better, and arguably, that would have made the situation better. But he was hardly wronged. However, this disagreement led the ECB to try and protect their central contracts by damaging Pietersen's reputation. To destroy his credibility. Which did a lot of harm, and set a pattern for how the press would go on treating him. And led to the events of 2012.

His chapter on the IPL is awful. Full of faulty reasoning, barely credible assumptions, self pity and a lack of understanding of the feelings of others. For example, others might have been jealous of his contract, but wouldn't that make you want to keep quiet about it, to protect them from a feeling of inadequacy? Apparently not. As a player who had played many years for England though, I think the ECB might have given him (or Swann, or Bell) a little bit of what they wanted.

Probably ECB might not have thought it would be a good idea - especially given KP's superstar appeal in IPL coupled with his obvious love of IPL and their own aversion to IPL / BCCI those days. Probably from the ECB's PoV, thats a dangerous path with no guarantee that there would not be further demands down the road, ultimately resulting in players wanting to become freelance a la Gayle, Bravo etc. (Admittedly slim chance for a board like ECB with strong revenues).

Incidentally, now that BCCI & ECB are working closely in the new setup, I am curious to see how this affects ECB's attitude vis-a-vis IPL (and the participation of English Players in IPL). Perhaps the next edition of IPL in 2015 might give some clues on this.

The issue is avoided somewhat, simply because hardly any of our players who play test cricket are wanted by the IPL, and the ECB arent going to stop others go

Agree! But things might become complicated once you will have players like Jos Buttler, Alex Hales in your test team! I know Buttler opted out of IPL this year, but priorities might change over years!

[m@tt]

Good post Matt above. When it comes to summing up my thoughts on the book, I might just bump up that.

Not sure I agree about the Downton point. Surely he shouldn't have come in with preconceptions? And should have taken time to weigh up what happened once the bad feeling had subsided from the whitewash, and he got to know the people involved.

Though really I feel the new coach should have decided whether or not they wanted Kevin.

I agree on those last two points. My point wasn't that Downton should have had preconceptions*, only that he may well have done. Either that or he was swayed too easily and early as to what to do with KP.

* That said, you can't help preconceptions. You can help taking action on them. For someone who was apparently a successful businessman in the City of London, you'd expect more rationality in the decision making and less emotion.

[Arthur Crabtree]

On the bowler/keeper elite.

'They ran an exclusive club. If you were outside of that clique you were fair game for mocking, ridicule, bullying. That's what those guys did.

'In the first couple of years, it didn't affect me directly. I was a senior player, and I could give as good as I got in there, but it hurt the young players, especially the batters'.

He implies that Flower's lack of empathy or skill in communicating meant he was uncomfortable in dealing with it.

[Gingerfinch]

What about the captain(s)? They should have put a stop to that, if true of course.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I think it's worth expanding on.

'It's picking on players- particularly the younger ones- publicly, in the field, and then taking it back to the dressing room and giving them an earful there as well. A guy could make one mistake, fumble a ball, let a batsman get off the mark, and boom: what the **** are you doing?... Once that player's card was marked, they couldn't do a thing right. Every time they made the slightest mistake, it would come out again.'

[Arthur Crabtree]

Excusing Jimmy Anderson he continues:

'The clique were extrovert and loud, and turned the dressing room into a batters v bowlers environement. The batters were guys like Ian Bell, Alastair Cook, Jonathan trott, Eoin Morgan, Joe Root, Ravi Bopara. None of those guys would say boo to a goose. It's just not in their nature.

As a result they would just take the abuse on a daily basis.... But then, in a Test match against Bangladesh, Trott was at deep square leg, and he just cracked.'

Good stuff this. Some of the time I think a lot of the problem is that KP hasn't got a sense of humour, or he neither understands nor likes irony. But this is quite convincing.

[Gingerfinch]

I find it hard to believe that the captain (a batsman) didn't intervene, if it was that bad.

Thanks for the free extracts Arthur.

[Arthur Crabtree]

I mentioned that Bangladesh game earlier. KP says they had a team meeting when some players complained about the behaviour of the bowlers, and the clique demanded an apology...