The enigma that is Kevin Pietersen

[Aidan11]

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

This was what I'd been hearing. Cook didn't want to play in the same team as KP. So if true Strauss has put the feelings of his mate before England.

[Aidan11]

Just when it couldn't get worse for KP, he's out of the IPL with an injured calf.

[Aidan11]

I said it was Cook, didn't I?

[Aidan11]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2 ... -trust-ecb

[Aidan11]

Ian Bell has just said England are weaker without KP.


Cook will be bawling at Strauss as we speak telling him to change the squad for the first test.

[Aidan11]

Another good piece -

http://www.thefulltoss.com/england-cric ... nd-the-kp/

[Aidan11]

KP may have been right about the bullying culture in the dressing room.


There's certainly one player calling all the shots at the moment.

[KipperJohn]

Ian Bell has just said England are weaker without KP.


Cook will be bawling at Strauss as we speak telling him to change the squad for the first test.

Is that so - because Bell bats at 4, his form has been up and down, and he'd be the likely one to have had to make way for KP - with whom he didn't appear to have any issues. Just been replaced as VC too.

All very odd.

[ddb]

Maybe this is why Bell was dropped as VC? Not part of the clique.

[Alviro Patterson]

Maybe England are thinking ahead and see Root as future England captain, a decision which Bell supports.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/32735594

Makes sense for Root to ease into a future role whilst his game is still developing.

Bell also mentions it would be difficult for KP to play in his natural middle order position with the emergence of Ballance and Root being England's top form player.

[alfie]

Bell didn't exactly call for Pietersen to be brought back into the team. He said "deserves a chance" and "maybe" and "in time"
Strauss didn't rule out a return at some later date either , to be accurate.

But we all know that Pietersen at 34 with an injury history that is unlikely to vanish as he gets older is not going to hang around at Surrey in hopes of a return next year. If he was that determined - and that patient - he'd have taken Strauss up on his offer to mentor the young ODI prospects , as a possible route back to limited over cricket at least...

Not blaming him for his choice not to do so , by the way.

I don't think Bell is the sort of chap who falls out with people much ; even difficult ones. He is just being nice.

[yorker_129-7]

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?

With 933 runs at 51 last season? I do believe I did, yes.

[yorker_129-7]

Strauss didn't rule out a return at some later date either , to be accurate.

You can't bring facts into this!?!? It's all about blind anger, hatred and supporting Australia because RAGE.

[Alviro Patterson]

Strauss didn't rule out a return at some later date either , to be accurate.

You can't bring facts into this!?!? It's all about blind anger, hatred and supporting Australia because RAGE.

"While there is no trust between Kevin and the ECB, it is our opinion he cannot feature in our short-term plans. Long-term, who knows?"

How on earth did that quote get overlooked?

Can't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Long term, who knows!

Hmm.

I suppose hell could freeze over.

Some supporters don't like their players to go on a tour and carry any drinks. But its a valid plan to string someone along with a shrug like this. They might as well have said 'who cares?'.