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Does Kevin Pietersen deserve the axe in ODIs?

should KP be axed from ODIs?


  • Total voters
    34

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
I agree but I'd give KP one more series.

Probably the right decision to stick with him in this one anyway, no use hurting his ego with the Indians on the way.
 

Jacknife

International Captain
I agree but I'd give KP one more series.

Probably the right decision to stick with him in this one anyway, no use hurting his ego with the Indians on the way.
Agree, if he doesn't perform in the next one, I think it will be time for a change. Still believe, it will only take him one good score and he will be alright again but you can only say that for so long, he really does need to kick on and make use of the form he's in.
There are 90 odd ODi's before the next WC, so there's plenty of time to blood new players and preferably into a winning team and one at a time.
 

grecian

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
I'd still drop both tbh, but I wouldn't hate it if they dropped him to 6, and left out bell. May recharge his career, and we're lacking at the finisher. Buttler probably not quite ready yet. If they did that, they'd at least be acknowledging somethings wrong, and has to change.

Yet my team for the next Odi would be:

Cook
CK
Hales
Trott
Morgan
Buttler
Swann
Bresnan
Broad
Anderson
Dernbach

With Blackwell as the second spinner if needed.
 

Redbacks

International Captain
Pietersen - 85 runs @ 21.25, SR 94.44
Bell - 81 runs @ 20.25, SR 69.23

Neither player has had an acceptable series but at least Pietersen isn't wasting everyone's time when he's not scoring runs.
If he could drop his SR to 80 and average 10-15 more runs for a while it would probably be a good compromise. Have most of his dismissals been whilst forcing the play? Hayden was in dire straights pre WC07 and played a few of the ugliest ODI knocks to get back, put away some of the high risk shots and ground it out, could be just the tonic for KP.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Well the selectors are wrong then, four years 'til the next World Cup, now is the time to bring in fresh blood, KP will be 35ish then. He hasn't performed in two years now, not form a slump.

We haven't performed in this form when it matters for a while, major surgery is needed.
Approaching 20 years, to be precise - and I've seen a fair bit of major surgery in that time.
We already have a new captain who's reacquainting himself with the 50-overs game, another opener who's just been brought back, a seamer who's played one series and a second spinner who's played all of one game.

Having said all that, I'm as tempted as anyone to bring in a batch of bright young things. Taylor for Bell almost seems a given. But is Buttler good enough to bat in the top 6 in these games yet? If he's batting at 6 or 7 for Somerset, I reckon not.
 

wpdavid

Hall of Fame Member
Swann hasn't performed with the bat in quite a while... 7 very high for him.
Bresnan and Broad both bat ahead of him for England - I don't think Grecian was being definitive about the lower order. Not that I think Bresnan's an ideal number 7 either.
 

S Chanderpaul

U19 Vice-Captain
I'd still drop both tbh, but I wouldn't hate it if they dropped him to 6, and left out bell. May recharge his career, and we're lacking at the finisher. Buttler probably not quite ready yet. If they did that, they'd at least be acknowledging somethings wrong, and has to change.

Yet my team for the next Odi would be:

Cook
CK
Hales
Trott
Morgan
Buttler
Swann
Bresnan
Broad
Anderson
Dernbach

With Blackwell as the second spinner if needed.
Blackwell?

He's fatter than Samit!!
 

Spark

Global Moderator
Bresnan and Broad both bat ahead of him for England - I don't think Grecian was being definitive about the lower order. Not that I think Bresnan's an ideal number 7 either.
Oh yeah but Bresnan is at least capable of batting #7. Currently I don't think Swann could even bat #8.
 

grecian

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Approaching 20 years, to be precise - and I've seen a fair bit of major surgery in that time.
We already have a new captain who's reacquainting himself with the 50-overs game, another opener who's just been brought back, a seamer who's played one series and a second spinner who's played all of one game.

Having said all that, I'm as tempted as anyone to bring in a batch of bright young things. Taylor for Bell almost seems a given. But is Buttler good enough to bat in the top 6 in these games yet? If he's batting at 6 or 7 for Somerset, I reckon not.
I think Buttler is a specialist finisher, and is likely to play in that position for his whole career. it's something England have needed for a while.
 

grecian

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Oh yeah but Bresnan is at least capable of batting #7. Currently I don't think Swann could even bat #8.
meh from what I saw this series they're all bloody pish, so batting order is irrelevant, I may have put jimmeh at 7 for all the difference it would make.
 

Blaze 18

Banned
It's an overused cliche, perhaps, but it's true : form is temporary, class is permanent. KP's all class. The question pertinent to the discussion at hand is whether or not England have a better replacement. I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of expert on English domestic cricket (I don't follow Indian domestic cricket, let alone England's!), but I'd wager there isn't a better replacement. Sometimes even if your gun player is performing poorly, you've got to back him and carry him if there's a shortage of alternatives (ex - Dravid and the Indian test team).

All that said, a break may do him a world of good. If he's 'rested' (as opposed to 'dropped') for a series or two, maybe that'll get him going again?
 

vcs

Request Your Custom Title Now!
It's an overused cliche, perhaps, but it's true : form is temporary, class is permanent. KP's all class. The question pertinent to the discussion at hand is whether or not England have a better replacement. I'm not going to pretend to be some sort of expert on English domestic cricket (I don't follow Indian domestic cricket, let alone England's!), but I'd wager there isn't a better replacement. Sometimes even if your gun player is performing poorly, you've got to back him and carry him if there's a shortage of alternatives (ex - Dravid and the Indian test team).

All that said, a break may do him a world of good. If he's 'rested' (as opposed to 'dropped') for a series or two, maybe that'll get him going again?
Yeah, but look at the stats Athlai posted.. they're appalling.
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
I can see both sides here.

The thread title asks us: "Does Kevin Pietersen deserve the axe from the ODIs?" Well bloody oath he does! Absolutely. His performances have been terrible over an extended period and far below the standard a team of England's talent pool should expect. He's extremely lucky to be in the side and I find that a relatively easy question to answer.

The poll question asks us a very different question: "Should KP be axed from ODIs?" While he obviously deserves it, the selection of a team in any sport at any level isn't - or shouldn't, at least - be focused around rewarding and punishing players when they deserve it, but rather serving the best interests of the team in the short, medium and long terms. It's a far more complicated question to which I can see both sides. Obviously, yes, his performances have been terrible for quite some time, but I think the thing that saves him the most here is the fact that no-one really knows why, and hence we have comparatively little faith in the evidence of the last year or so as a gauge of what it is to come.

It's human nature to be more dismissive of patterns as coincidence when we can't grasp the causal link logically, and I think the fact that none of us can really pinpoint why Pietersen suddenly can't score any runs makes us all hesitant to suggest he shouldn't be playing. If he was getting to a typical age of decline, or had an obvious technical fault exposed, or had a poor domestic history in one day cricket that was finally catching up to him, or had an obvious life-changing personal issue that was clearly effecting his game, or even just looked really out of form at the crease, I think we'd all jump at the chance to blame it on that, drop him and sleep easily. None of that is really the case though - even though he's been pretty much the worst batsman in ODI cricket worldwide over the past couple of years, his previous performances at this level were so good for lunch a long time that his overall record is still amazing. The guy has proven he can play and that he belongs at this level. His domestic record in all forms is brilliant, he isn't getting out in any one particular way to suggest a technical fault (left arm spin jokes aside), he still looks relatively good at the crease most of the time before falling, he's still only 31 and nothing else has really changed at all. Combine all this with the fact that England have other more obvious problems in their team to address (Bell) and it becomes pretty murky. Personally, I'm pretty happy either way. He obviously deserves the axe but it may or may not be the right decision for any number of reasons; it's an impossibly tough call from my perspective.
 
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