Kevin Pietersen's Autobiography.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Why just assume everything KP says is a lie? It's normal to have contrary evidence before that. If he is incapable of feeling sympathy towards someone else, if that is so hard to believe, that takes him beyond just the unlikeable, and towards the psychopathic.

I accept that different people will have different ideas of what bullying is. Probably at least the bully and the bullied.

[braveneutral]

In the cheese stakes (I wrote cheese steaks - maybe they will get on the menu at the cafe if there is sufficient interest) is KP a babybel - comes across with a hard exterior but on the inside is all soft mush?

[braveneutral]

I rang my local B&Q to see if they had one. They had protection racketeers, match fixers, crooked politicians and chainsaw extremists but sadly no hired assassins.

You wonder what the point is of having a huge shop in a retail park.

Tell me about it. They don't even have a cafe. Or a hat shop.

[sussexpob]

Well, they were out to get him.

I think the stress, boredom and disorientation of being on the road and away from home so much is a bit destablising.

I been saying that for years in answer to fans who say what a great life they have on tour, staying in 10 star hotels and cosseted by backroom staff. It's that side of life which is more tiring than the amount of cricket they play.

I have to spent a lot of time travelling for work.... I hate it. I sympathise with anyone who does it.

[hopeforthebest]

Why just assume everything KP says is a lie? It's normal to have contrary evidence before that. If he is incapable of feeling sympathy towards someone else, if that is so hard to believe, that takes him beyond just the unlikeable, and towards the psychopathic.

I accept that different people will have different ideas of what bullying is. Probably at least the bully and the bullied.

I think what we have from this book is the question namely, how fine is the line between gross exaggeration of events and a lie.

[hopeforthebest]

Well, they were out to get him.

I think the stress, boredom and disorientation of being on the road and away from home so much is a bit destablising.

I been saying that for years in answer to fans who say what a great life they have on tour, staying in 10 star hotels and cosseted by backroom staff. It's that side of life which is more tiring than the amount of cricket they play.

I have to spent a lot of time travelling for work.... I hate it. I sympathise with anyone who does it.

I'm trying very hard to feel sorry for you sussex but failing horribly.

[Making_Splinters]

Another strange one from Collier, "In any professional sport players will get frustrated with each other - that's a fact of life. I didn't see that as in any way affecting the team atmosphere".

So why has such have the ECB made such a consistant issue over KPs effects on the dressing room?

[Arthur Crabtree]

Well we all shape the events around us to tally with the person we think we are. We all justify our behaviour. And we all try and, where feasible, present ourselves in an admirable light, however perversely that might show itself. And we like being thought well of. Normally. I imagine all this will be at play in this book. But I doubt someone is going to outright lie in a book when others were present. So I expect all of this can be defended as containing the truth. So if KP says he flagged up Trott wasn't well, I don't assume he went into a special meeting and outlined the risks and best strategy to deal with the problem. But I do accept that KP did tell the coach that Trott was struggling, however informally.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Another strange one from Collier, "In any professional sport players will get frustrated with each other - that's a fact of life. I didn't see that as in any way affecting the team atmosphere".

So why has such have the ECB made such a consistant issue over KPs effects on the dressing room?

I doubt Collier has much of a clue about the dressing room. The statement itself doesn't really make sense.

[sussexpob]

Well, they were out to get him.

I think the stress, boredom and disorientation of being on the road and away from home so much is a bit destablising.

I been saying that for years in answer to fans who say what a great life they have on tour, staying in 10 star hotels and cosseted by backroom staff. It's that side of life which is more tiring than the amount of cricket they play.

I have to spent a lot of time travelling for work.... I hate it. I sympathise with anyone who does it.

I'm trying very hard to feel sorry for you sussex but failing horribly.

Last weekend I went to Croatia, I mentioned it on these boards.I spent the night at the airport, arriving too late after work to actually eat dinner.

I had a red eye flight booked, meaning I had to wake up basically before most people went to bed. I arrived, I got bused to a conference centre at 5* hotel on the beach in Split, lovely spa, lots of facilities....

Not that I seen any of those. I was straight into a conference for 6 hours, having not ate in 24 hours, which ended giving me 45 minutes to check in and shower, change, and then have an evening at the tourist board, which sounds fun, but having got up not long after midnight, I was too tired to do anything, and I might as well have been anywhere.

The morning after I had meeting from 0800- 1900 hours, after which I had to go to an awards function till 2300 hours. The only free time was a couple of 5 minutes inbetween meetings. I was woke up at 0700 hours to get a plane home.... on arrival back home, I went to bed at 1900 hours and slept till the morning.

Ask me what Split is like, I wouldnt be able to tell you. I seen the inside of a few rooms, a hotel room, and thats about it.

Not glamorous at all. You do it a long time, you miss your family, you begin to hate living out a bag, you miss just being at home and all the things you have there, you miss cooking for yourself, etc etc.

Doing that with the added pressure of the public gaze, for months on end...... that could become pure hell.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Stuff like, they get back from three months away, have two-three days at home, and then have to go an another tour (Ashes & WC 2011).

After the WI tour next year, there's an ODI the day after they get back!

After the Ashes tour, Bell got called up for the tour of WI and the WCT20, and I think he didn't actually play in any of it. He had a new baby.

[sussexpob]

Stuff like, they get back from three months away, have two-three days at home, and then have to go an another tour (Ashes & WC 2011).

After the WI tour next year, there's an ODI the day after they get back!

After the Ashes tour, Bell got called up for the tour of WI and the WCT20, and I think he didn't actually play in any of it. He had a new baby.

I think anyone who has ever had distance between someone close could relate to that. Me and my wife at one point early in our relationship had to deal with the distance between Australia and England for 4 or 5 months. I can tell you there is nothing worse than that, its something that eats away at you constantly.

[Arthur Crabtree]

And the signs are that the people in charge still don't recognise that uniqueness of pressure. Collier likens Flower to some fairly robust football managers. But the two situations are not comparable. Playing cricket is like going to the world cup over and over again (assuming you don't get knocked out after two weeks). In no other sport are you expected to keep going, often so far away, and with so little control. A golfer may live an itinerant life, but can decide to miss a tournament. A cricketer has little say over whether he has to play, or even if he will be dropped.

[rich1uk]

all this talk of "tarnishing the golden era" that the ECB and mouthpieces are coming out with atm seems to be missing the point

that golden era, even if it could really be called that, finished in 2011, since then we have been very inconsistent with a couple of good series interspersed with a number of very bad ones. and its that period where most of the issues we are talking about took place. where the over-reliance on stats became more prevalent, where the micro-management started to cause problems and the practices which were needed to develop a winning mentality were not necessarily the right ones to maintain it. we saw a period where numerous players were picked and played through injuries, even when surgery was needed, and their performances suffered as a result, a period where continuity of selection turned into an almost closed shop and a period where the failures and problems seemed to be ignored and any criticism brushed off and we got reminded of the "golden era".

my main worry is that whilst I have no doubt a lot of what KP is saying is exaggerated or a product of his own perception of victimisation, that there are real issues being put forward and the ECB's reaction to all of this will be to circle the wagons and ignore the message because of who the messenger was.

[meninblue]

my main worry is that whilst I have no doubt a lot of what KP is saying is exaggerated or a product of his own perception of victimisation, that there are real issues being put forward and the ECB's reaction to all of this will be to circle the wagons and ignore the message because of who the messenger was.

This is from an article written by Steve Harmission

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/o ... ing-claims

Steve Harmison believes Ashley Giles missed out on the England coach’s job because of his relationship with Kevin Pietersen and has backed up his former team-mate’s claims that there was a culture of bullying in the dressing room.

“The culture of bullying, if you want to call it that, had to be nipped in the bud,” Harmison said. “It wasn’t. That was a big mistake. It was allowed to go on and on, until Kevin clearly believed the other senior players were against him. However, I struggle a bit to see Kevin Pietersen as a bullying victim. That’s hard to picture.

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Now the case is that we have one more messenger who played in same era and acknowledges bullying in English cricket. Will the ECB say that Harmisson is also lying.