It's Tough Being Me - The Kevin Pietersen Story

[GIMH]

The trust issue is huge. The team needs to trust he'll put the team goals ahead of his own. It's not about just scoring a ton because, at best, he'll only do that once or twice a series anyway. No matter the level, they're still a team and when blokes are in it for themselves, the team suffers whereas guys, even ****s, who understand the social contract they sign when they join a team, raise the performance of those around them.

The ECB has handled this poorly but the bottom line is if England can't trust KP with all the intangibles, he shouldn't be picked. All the perpherial stuff would be far easier to forgive if he was doing the team thing right. England did, at one stage, know how to manage more aggressive personalities, KP had his most productive periods when the team was practically over-flowing with them. I reckon blokes like Vaughan being in charge are the missing piece.

Kaka boom

 

[Pratters]

Cluster**** or omnishambles? One can't quite decide.

At least we can all agree the ECB deserves some kind of award for the sending of telly novella level mixed messages. Colin says "it's all about runs, dude"; Kev nixes $250k, scores his runs (more in a CC innings than anyone else this century, in fact) and turns up to Andy's gaff with hair slicked back, a Johnny in his wallet and a bottle of medium priced white wine in his trembling hand only to be told "nah, it's trust. You, like, rily hurt me."

Haha, yeah.

 

[Kyle]

Not to mention the number of England players who are not part of the "Strauss-Cook-Anderson-Broad-Swann" club who came out and said (surprise surprise) that he was NOT a bad influence on the team...

Exactly. All this chatter about how toxic he is yet so many other cricketers he's been in England and county teams with him supporting him. Odd.

Trust just the latest buzz word from the ECB.

 

[Pratters]

KP always looks like this non religious bloke in a community of religious fellows. Whatever happens, he should not be in the team as he is so unholy. He will corrupt us and make us impure. We don't want that. It will make our team so poisonous. Satan's own child.

 

[harsh.ag]

The trust issue is huge. The team needs to trust he'll put the team goals ahead of his own. It's not about just scoring a ton because, at best, he'll only do that once or twice a series anyway. No matter the level, they're still a team and when blokes are in it for themselves, the team suffers whereas guys, even ****s, who understand the social contract they sign when they join a team, raise the performance of those around them.

Such BS.

KP affects the performance of others by his mere presence? What kind of a portrait exactly is being painted of professional cricketers here?

Some players don't like him and that's it. Maybe he will positively affect the batting of Root and Lyth and Ali and Stokes. But of course if he ****s with Captain Cook's temperament...

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah everyone who wasn't in the half the non-KP team (in fact over half as you can most certainly add Prior to that list) never had a problem with him. What a small list of people.

Conveniently not commenting on the "consultant" offer I see

 

[GIMH]

Conveniently not commenting on the "consultant" offer I see

Vintage HB right there

 

[four_or_six]

KP column now published:

Kevin Pietersen: My fury at England deceit - Telegraph

 

[honestbharani]

lol.. I don wanna drag out another argument with you... Pretty sure it is as tired n boring as the KP saga itself... My views are pretty straight forward... I think he deserves to be part of the England set up now or at the very least, merit consideration on form basis alone.. All the rest is just a huge pile of soap opera bull **** that really should not be what cricket teams be thinking about. End of Story.

 

[Pratters]

KP column now published:

Kevin Pietersen: My fury at England deceit - Telegraph

Gutting reading it. Feel so sad for KP.

 

[honestbharani]

NO matter how bad u think a guy is, the way KP has been treated this year is no way anyone should ever be treating a person...

 

[Niall]

Gutting reading it. Feel so sad for KP.

If the below is true, then wow. England are ranked five in test cricket,6 in odi cricket and 8 in t20 cricket and have came off a brutal world cup and are playing an Ashes series which when they last contested were hammered 5-0.

Sorry but immediate results and do matter especially if you are spending an absolute fortune on Ashes tickets.

I am angry and hurt but right now there is nothing I can do about it. Strauss will be judged on his results. Yet I have heard from two very good sources that results do not matter this summer anyway. The job description for the director of cricket job is focused on longer term goals.
But if Strauss has been told he does not have to win this summer then why should the players train and work hard? In essence, quite incredibly, they have all been given permission to lose the Ashes. I have never heard that before. It is not in my make-up and I know it is not in the make-up of the English public either. Especially for those who have paid a lot of money for tickets.

 

[Spark]

In fairness, Clarke, Arthur and later Lehmann took more or less the same approach to the 2013 Ashes. They just kept it a secret, and weren't so unsubtle about it...

Planning for a series four years in advance is daft, though.

 

[honestbharani]

Yeah but they were assessing which players to use based on cricketing reasons.. Even the guys who failed homeworkgate were not blackballed..

 

[Pratters]

As long as you play to win, that's okay. You cannot expect to turn it around so fast. That was an angry low blow from KP though which you can't fault him too much for.

 

[Pratters]

KP is going to sue the ECB and there is no reason he shouldn't.

 

[four_or_six]

It is occasionally possible to have someone in a workplace who is just such a nightmare to be around that even though they're excellent at their own individual job they are just making most of their colleagues' lives a complete misery. The only problem is you can't manage someone out of the England cricket team to another company and restore peace for all concerned.

Although clearly in this case the management of the situation has been rubbish. In particular I'm really not sure what Graves was up to.

 

[BoyBrumby]

It is occasionally possible to have someone in a workplace who is just such a nightmare to be around that even though they're excellent at their own individual job they are just making most of their colleagues' lives a complete misery. The only problem is you can't manage someone out of the England cricket team to another company and restore peace for all concerned.

Although clearly in this case the management of the situation has been rubbish. In particular I'm really not sure what Graves was up to.

No, quite.

If what Pietersen says about the two phone conversations is true he's either wildly exceeded his remit, is hopelessly out of touch with his own organisation or has just flat out lied.

None of which are particularly attractive scenarios.

 

[WalkingWicket]

God I f***ing despise the ECB right now. Bunch of rats.

 

[Kyle]

Beyond KP, the way they've handled this is awful for Root/Ballance. The attention they'll get if they have a bad series vs NZ will be horrific.