The enigma that is Kevin Pietersen

[sussexpob]

Michael Bevans best bowling figures in a test match; 10/113 and to this day still has the best strike rate of any Australian bowler in test cricket of 44.30. Wow now that immensely deserves being mentioned.

Scored 6 x 100's in 12 matches for Sussex in 2000 too..... a very enjoyable summer down Hove watching Bevo make the average attack look like they were bowling with beach balls to him. A great mystery why he never made it in tests.

The Australian test team never fully believed in him, he just didn't fit to what they were after and was in and out of the side often and likely never confident that he was a permanent fixture. The media and commentators created the short ball issue as they've done with other players and I guess it just got into his head a little bit. He could have had a great career IMHO had he been left alone.

You're lucky you got to watch him down your way, I only saw him live a few times.

I don't think Australia could be bothered with developing guys who didn't cut it after a good amount of time, there was so much talent in the pool waiting to play, they could have fielded a C team line up that would still have beaten most teams pretty comfortably.

I don't know for sure, but I don't think Bevan played a test after the 1997 Old Trafford Test. His replacement in the team was a certain Ricky Ponting, who banged a masterful 125 odd on a green pitch the next test at Headingly after England's new ball attack had made early inroads, and that was that. Australia moved on with Ponting, and the rest is history.

[sussexpob]

Ricky Ponting actually batted in that test for 200-250 partnership with Mathew Elliott, another example of a FC beast who never looked good enough at tests..... started ok, but in the disaster tour to SR in 1998-99 I think he bagged a pair in his only match, and then was utterly taken apart by Walsh and Ambrose in that magnificent 1999 series in the Caribbean.

[Dr Cricket]

Sussexpop you are correct also the pressure the players were under must be immensed one bad failure and you are out unless you are a big player, that probably created weakness in his game that he didn't really have.

Just looking at beven career at test, did well in his first 3 test in Pakistan, but struggled in the ashes that followed, didn't really do much in India, did well against West Indies but after that failed against England and South Africa.

No question he would have done better if he played for any other team, but must be crazy to break into the aus team and stay there.
Especially when you have like 20-30 people all fighting for 6 spots and 3-4 of them are probably safe.
Australia probably had the best batting depth ever in my option in the late 90 and naughties, people might say India between 2000-2010 but not sure outside the fab 4 the batting talent was really there and would certainly struggle to score the big runs they did.
Australia didn't really have the depth in the fast bowling stocks though as 2003 showed India pretty much destroyed an australia attack which suffered from lots of injuries.

West Indies certainly had the edge in that front, really wish I saw them play especially since I heard they had 20-30 fast bowler good enough to play for them crazy.

[sussexpob]

I remember reading an article recently which was about the best players that should have played more, or at least one test, but didn't for whatever reason.

I think 18 of the 20 were Australians who played in the 90's to early 2000's

[hopeforthebest]

Jason Roy and Steve Davies for England surely????

[sussexpob]

Jason Roy and Steve Davies for England surely????

Roy played in the last England international, and Davies is currently averaging over a 100 for the season, including two (what looks set to be) match winning scores.....

Sounds like a good call

[Making_Splinters]

For me, England have four issues which need to be addressed coming into the summer. These are as follows (and in order of priority);

1. Opening batsman
2. Spinner
3. Third seamer
4. Wicket-keeper (Buttler badly needs a score at test level)

As far as I can tell Pietersen does not actually solve any of those issues. Frankly, the one area of the England team which is not broken right now is the middle order batting, where England have two of the form batsman in test cricket (Ballance and Root) plus plenty of strength in depth to call on (Bairstow, Taylor, Vince, Hildreth, Wright). I do not believe personally that the best course to take is to leap-frog all of them (and I'll add Hales to the list too) who have earned the right to be considered over several seasons for a guy in his mid-30s with a dodgy knee and more baggage than Terminal 5.

That being said, this has been poorly handled by the ECB, and there is one man I blame more than anyone else. It's not Strauss, it's Colin Graves. It was his comments which seem to have left Pietersen feeling he had a chance to come back, and his subsequent silence letting Strauss do the dirty work for him has been, IMHO, shameful. Not that you will hear him criticised by many of the vocal media types, can't have Vaughan and Boycott criticising a fellow Yorkshireman, can we?

But let's not forget one very salient point here which has been missed. There is, at the end of the day, one man who is to blame for this whole saga unfolding as it has. That man is Kevin Pietersen himself. He flounced out of playing pyjama cricket for England. He sent texts to the South African team to damage any trust the dressing room had in him. He moped around at long-off in the Ashes debacle looking about as interested in what was happening (despite being one of the senior men in the team) as a toddler at the Carpet Museum in Kidderminster. He wrote a book detailing how essentially everyone in the England dressing room was personally out to get him. He teamed up with Piers Morgan who decided it would be a great idea to leak that a private meeting was taking place last night between him and Strauss. He rejected the chance to rebuild trust in him through the ECB in this ODI support role.

Where England right to get rid of him when they did? Maybe, maybe not. Are England right to say he hasn't got a chance? Probably. Has it been handled appallingly? Certainly.

What I think is the most depressing thing is what we have seen cricket and cricket supporters becoming over the last 30 hours or so, and it all started with a huge amount of personal abuse I received on the Cricinfo Live County thread for suggesting that maybe runs against Leicestershire weren't necessarily the toughest he'll ever score. Everyone just seems to have been so fundamentally ANGRY, and intense about it too. To the extent where we have grown men, many of whom I thoroughly respect the opinions of, claiming they will be supporting New Zealand and / or Australia as a matter of spite, forgetting that one of the basic levels of being a fan is that you should always want your team to do as best they can. The players and fans who are backing England are totally innocent and deserve better than to see fickle tantrums such as that.

Did you just claim Luke Wright is a potential England middle order Test batsman?

[dan08]

Just when you think it can't get even more ridiculous https://twitter.com/eaamalyon/status/598602911162232832

[Arthur Crabtree]

While the tough, steel balled Cook might have been on his way, it's hard to believe admin staff were so alarmed.

[dan08]

Who are these admin staff? Flower?

[Arthur Crabtree]

Does Flower order the ink cartridges and sort out building maintenance?

[dan08]

Does Flower order the ink cartridges and sort out building maintenance?

Cricinfo's Vithushan Ehantharajah tweeted that admin staff is just another way of saying support staff and all others involved with the ECB.

[dan08]

Interesting tweet from George Dobell https://twitter.com/GeorgeDobell1/statu ... 9991155712

[Arthur Crabtree]

Good work. Dobell has been a bit off the boil recently. Maybe he needs reminding who are the bad guys.

The comment about leaving the D off his name was a good one. I guess perhaps not original.

[Making_Splinters]

Did an international Test captain really just say he would quit the game if a player was selected? How can said player still remain in charge when he will willing make threats such as these and put himself above the team? Then again Cook's messiah complex has been evident for quite some time, can't wait to see the back of him.