flibbertyjibber
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Newman putting boot in again in Mail. No surprises where he is getting his quotes from being so close to the Essex mafia.
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It's Tough Being Me - The Kevin Pietersen Story
- Thread starter Spikey
- Start date
Tangles
International Vice-Captain
Timing is the crazy thing here. The Ashes were a flogging and left the team with a top 7 looking like this.
1. Cook
2. -
3. -
4. - KP
5. - Bell
6. - Stokes
7. -
Remove KP and you have 4 spots to fill. How anyone can think that's the right way to rebuild a team is beyond me. When your missing 2 of your top 3 and a keeper step 1 isn't dumping your number 4 blindly. You fix the other 3 problems first then take another look at KP. This isn't about how good he is its about how many bigger problems the team already has. Let's not forget they don't have a 3rd seamer or a spinner and the captain is clueless when his team doesn't have the talent to neutralize his impact on a game.
1. Cook
2. -
3. -
4. - KP
5. - Bell
6. - Stokes
7. -
Remove KP and you have 4 spots to fill. How anyone can think that's the right way to rebuild a team is beyond me. When your missing 2 of your top 3 and a keeper step 1 isn't dumping your number 4 blindly. You fix the other 3 problems first then take another look at KP. This isn't about how good he is its about how many bigger problems the team already has. Let's not forget they don't have a 3rd seamer or a spinner and the captain is clueless when his team doesn't have the talent to neutralize his impact on a game.
Adders
Cricketer Of The Year
So it seems "most" posters here think the ECB have lost their marbles and have cut off their nose to spite their face in getting rid of KP. Question is, how much should any team take from one player, when does enough become enough? Can you really keep moving the line and putting up with the **** just because he is (arguably) the best batsman in the side?
IMO the textgate business should have been enough for anyone (even if you are Don Bradman) to be sacked for good, and I suspect if it were a lesser England player it would have been. But the ECB backed down on that, accepted the apologies, moved the line and reintegrated him. We don't really know yet what happened behind the scenes in Aus, or how bad it got or KP behaved......but at this juncture im prepared to give the benefit of doubt to the management given KP's past history.
So we've got rid of arguably our best batsmen in 50 years, until we move forward without him we don't know what impact this will have on the team. This is possibly a dubious analogy and likely to ruffle the feathers of Big Freds fans, but I think we can take positives out of what happened after Flintoffs forced retirement. Fred was our best allrounder since Beefy and was considered an impossible player to replace, his retirement left a big hole to fill and ****ed the balance of the side. Whilst Flintoffs career wasn't exactly scandal free I'm not suggesting he was anywhere near the rotten egg that KP is, but he was still a big ego in the change room and I believe Jimmy Anderson for one didn't particularly like playing alongside him.
Coincidence or not Flintoffs career ending pretty much coincided with the start of England's "purple patch" and Jimmy Anderson lifting his game and becoming one of the best quicks in the game. England ended up being a better team without Flintoff as others came out from under his shadow and blossomed.
Time will tell how this pans out and what impact it has on the English cricket team, but I'm far more concerned about how we are going to replace Swann and Prior (if he's done) than I am KP.
IMO the textgate business should have been enough for anyone (even if you are Don Bradman) to be sacked for good, and I suspect if it were a lesser England player it would have been. But the ECB backed down on that, accepted the apologies, moved the line and reintegrated him. We don't really know yet what happened behind the scenes in Aus, or how bad it got or KP behaved......but at this juncture im prepared to give the benefit of doubt to the management given KP's past history.
So we've got rid of arguably our best batsmen in 50 years, until we move forward without him we don't know what impact this will have on the team. This is possibly a dubious analogy and likely to ruffle the feathers of Big Freds fans, but I think we can take positives out of what happened after Flintoffs forced retirement. Fred was our best allrounder since Beefy and was considered an impossible player to replace, his retirement left a big hole to fill and ****ed the balance of the side. Whilst Flintoffs career wasn't exactly scandal free I'm not suggesting he was anywhere near the rotten egg that KP is, but he was still a big ego in the change room and I believe Jimmy Anderson for one didn't particularly like playing alongside him.
Coincidence or not Flintoffs career ending pretty much coincided with the start of England's "purple patch" and Jimmy Anderson lifting his game and becoming one of the best quicks in the game. England ended up being a better team without Flintoff as others came out from under his shadow and blossomed.
Time will tell how this pans out and what impact it has on the English cricket team, but I'm far more concerned about how we are going to replace Swann and Prior (if he's done) than I am KP.
Adders
Cricketer Of The Year
Just some talk that was going around about the time of the 2009 Ashes iirc. Tbh, it could well just be gossip and urban myth so I'm not suggesting it should be taken as gospel and your hypothetical could be just as correct.
But true or not, Jimmy and England did start to fire after Freds retirement and as much as most England fans loved Flintoff (myself included) we didn't really end up missing him at all.
Maybe in time we'll look back and think the same of KP??
The problem England have now which they didn't have with the retirement of Flintoff, is that we are now looking to replace 4 players that have all been pivotal to the teams success but I think Prior and Swanns shoes are going to be a lot harder to fill than KP's.
Adders
Cricketer Of The Year
That was a great read and Flintoff speaks a lot of sense about a lot of issues.
flibbertyjibber
Request Your Custom Title Now!
Covering ass there GIMH.
Been a shambles from start to finish this last few months.
Been a shambles from start to finish this last few months.
Furball
Evil Scotsman
Nope. Anderson upping his game and being England's best bowler predates Flintoff's retirement by over a year.
GIMH
Norwood's on Fire
Eh, only sort of. Was still heavily inconsistent throughout 08 and 09. Was even dropped in early 09 in fact.
Furball
Evil Scotsman
Nah, he wasn't the force he was to become but he was still England's best bowler by a ****ing mile in the period in question. And his dropping was because of selectorial stupidity, not bad performance.
GIMH
Norwood's on Fire
Yes
