Ah, Pietersen is crap against good teams, Flintoff's great bowling was a result of the sightscreen (the sightscreen may have benefitted the bowler - but a 'joke' GTFO - it was fantastic bowling)....one more and we may have ourselves a little trend.
It was fantastic theatre, fantastic bowling...I'm not so sure, was made to look better by Kallis picking up the ball so late. It wasn't in the same league as the over he bowled to Ponting in 05.
I didn't say Pietersen was crap against top teams, I said that in backs to wall situations or really difficult conditions against top bowlers that can make use of them he fails regularly (in fairness most batsmen do, but it stops Pietersen entering the Lara, Tendulkar or even Dravid categories). Against top teams in your run'o'the mill 1st innings (or even 2nd on a good surface) he'll probably hit a hundred 2 out of 3 times. I think that Mcgrath and Ambrose at their peaks would definitely have made him their bunnies though, their stock ball is his biggest weakness, Asif exploited it brilliantly when he came to England, short of length on off stump with a bit of bounce, Pietersen kept trying to get forward and muscle it through midwicket, kept getting out to him (4 times in a row IIRC).
That's why when comparing this England side to the one 10 years ago I'd take Thorpe ahead of Pietersen every time. In fact Atherton and Stewart are some of my favourite ever players, Thorpe too (though he ruined my first ever India match by winning it for England, 1995(?) Texaco Trophy).
I'm not some England hating cricket fanatic, if you've ever read any of my posts about how I'd like to see the English domestic system change and the ECB hire former test players rather than beauracrats you'd know that. English cricket seems to keep shooting itself in the foot, like Ponting said recently, "Everywhere they go something seems to go wrong".
,You are simply stat minded
