KP's Book

Red wrote:

Brass Monkey wrote:At the end of it, I had a healthy amount of sympathy for him. Yeah he's a FIGJAM, but the amount of shit he's had to take from the media in conjunction with the ECB who not only leak anything private he's ever said ever, but also lie through their teeth whilst leaking it, this book just turns into one entire explanation. Had this consistent vilification not occurred, I expect this book would've turned out completely different.

So do you think on balance they would have preferred not to deal with him?

Obviously he was a box office attraction and helped the team win test matches but there still seems to be a bit of an old-fashioned loathing of those who don't fit the template at headquarters. Once he qualified for England and put runs on the board they didn't have much choice though did they?

And Derek Pringle's take on KP.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/kevinpietersen/11157325/Kevin-Pietersen-is-a-maverick-and-plays-by-his-own-rules.html

Definitely. For certain. Most didn't want to deal with him. Giles Clarke wanted to deal with him because he was making them money. The rest wanted him gone. The whole reintegration meeting sounds exceptionally humiliating - bring the players in one by one for him to apologise to, even Bell and Trott who seemed to be on his side. Hugh Morris knew that players inside the dressing room were contributing to the fake Twitter account and did nothing about it. They wanted a forensic team to look at his phone. Seems totally horrendous to me....

Brass Monkey wrote:

Red wrote:

Brass Monkey wrote:At the end of it, I had a healthy amount of sympathy for him. Yeah he's a FIGJAM, but the amount of shit he's had to take from the media in conjunction with the ECB who not only leak anything private he's ever said ever, but also lie through their teeth whilst leaking it, this book just turns into one entire explanation. Had this consistent vilification not occurred, I expect this book would've turned out completely different.

So do you think on balance they would have preferred not to deal with him?

Obviously he was a box office attraction and helped the team win test matches but there still seems to be a bit of an old-fashioned loathing of those who don't fit the template at headquarters. Once he qualified for England and put runs on the board they didn't have much choice though did they?

And Derek Pringle's take on KP.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/kevinpietersen/11157325/Kevin-Pietersen-is-a-maverick-and-plays-by-his-own-rules.html

Definitely. For certain. Most didn't want to deal with him. Giles Clarke wanted to deal with him because he was making them money. The rest wanted him gone. The whole reintegration meeting sounds exceptionally humiliating - bring the players in one by one for him to apologise to, even Bell and Trott who seemed to be on his side. Hugh Morris knew that players inside the dressing room were contributing to the fake Twitter account and did nothing about it. They wanted a forensic team to look at his phone. Seems totally horrendous to me....

Yes one big mess. And this combination of forced humility, apologies, grovelling and obsequiousness appears to fuel not dilute the toxic mess that has characterised this unit in recent times.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/789027.html

Another perspective from Crowe. Perhaps the most perceptive and insightful piece that has been written on the saga and the man to this juncture.

Red wrote:http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/789027.html

Another perspective from Crowe. Perhaps the most perceptive and insightful piece that has been written on the saga and the man to this juncture.

Really? To me it looks like a full frontal assault on KP. Not sure where the insight and perception comes in.

taipan wrote:

Red wrote:http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/789027.html

Another perspective from Crowe. Perhaps the most perceptive and insightful piece that has been written on the saga and the man to this juncture.

Really? To me it looks like a full frontal assault on KP. Not sure where the insight and perception comes in.

Not a full frontal assault. He acknowledges that KP had the talent and the cricket world at his feet but it was the personality flaws that saw him leave SA in a fit of pique which resurfaced to haunt him and continue to characterise him today. Many people are flawed in various ways but KP's kind of hubris has meant that he has been a kind of ticking time bomb, especially in team environments. An article in our press over the weekend used the analogy of an AFL player Aker who was someone who was destined to be a troubled figure in the dressingroom once his powers waned and his coach cut ties as soon as the scales of usefulness tipped against him.

And so by reinstating the same bad apple, they poisoned the whole bunch

Yep, it was all caused by KP. No one else did anything wrong. He infected the lot of them.

And I am not even a KP fan.

taipan wrote:And so by reinstating the same bad apple, they poisoned the whole bunch

Yep, it was all caused by KP. No one else did anything wrong. He infected the lot of them.

And I am not even a KP fan.

He appears to be making the point at that juncture that reintegration was forced and it was never again going to be a cohesive dressing-room because of the breach of trust which is a valid observation. Despite his talent many critics at the time thought that the Strauss texts were the point of no return. This is not to excuse the bullying culture or any or the ire directed at KP by his teammates but it was a potentially explosive environment.

It's never really been mentioned that KP's so called "mates" in the South African team were the ones that leaked the texts about Strauss in the first place. Poor KP. He constantly seems to believe he's around people he can trust and speak his mind to, only to have them stab him in the back.


Unless of course KP leaked the texts himself.....

Henry wrote:It's never really been mentioned that KP's so called "mates" in the South African team were the ones that leaked the texts about Strauss in the first place. Poor KP. He constantly seems to believe he's around people he can trust and speak his mind to, only to have them stab him in the back.


Unless of course KP leaked the texts himself.....

Well, it's been mentioned by KP:

To this day I don’t know how the text-message story got out.

    I’ve heard a story that someone was at the table at dinner while my friend and I were messaging. He might have laughed when he got my BBM and said, ah, KP doesn’t deny that Straussy was being a doos. Harmless. Then this person just passed it on to somebody else as a funny story, a small bit of gossip. We all do that all the time.

    In the story, the person receiving the story was an agent and it suited him to leak to a newspaper – he’d know he’d probably need to call in a favour in return quite soon after. He called the Daily Mail, and the guy who answered the phone won an award.

    For me, it doesn’t quite ring true.

    I know the South African guys were incredibly embarrassed about it. They still are. I heard that during the Lord’s Test the PR woman who was working with the team told one of my buddies that the Sunday papers had got hold of the messages that had been exchanged between me and the South African players. And he couldn’t sleep that night. First thing in the morning he went downstairs to check the newspapers and see what the hell was going on.

    Some people – including David Collier, the then chief executive of the ECB – bought into the theory that the South African guys had played me. It has been said and written that if I played the third Test we would probably have won if my form had continued. If you want to go down that road you could say that the South Africans therefore played it perfectly. Again, with respect, that’s bullshit.

    I don’t believe it. I think David Collier’s accusation that the South Africans had duped me and his subsequent embarrassing apology says just about enough.

Red wrote:

taipan wrote:And so by reinstating the same bad apple, they poisoned the whole bunch

Yep, it was all caused by KP. No one else did anything wrong. He infected the lot of them.

And I am not even a KP fan.

He appears to be making the point at that juncture that reintegration was forced and it was never again going to be a cohesive dressing-room because of the breach of trust which is a valid observation.  Despite his talent many critics at the time thought that the Strauss texts were the point of no return.  This is not to excuse the bullying culture or any or the ire directed at KP by his teammates but it was a potentially explosive environment.

Except wasn't KPGenius before the texts?

Red wrote:No, they were saying today that rugby is in trouble, that people in oz have fallen out of love with the game and it struggles to generate money.

Cheers. The last I saw it was maybe in May and the football team were playing better than the pile of shite that they'd offered under their previous taypoc coach and it was a bit nauseating seeing them gush.

taipan wrote:

Red wrote:

taipan wrote:And so by reinstating the same bad apple, they poisoned the whole bunch

Yep, it was all caused by KP. No one else did anything wrong. He infected the lot of them.

And I am not even a KP fan.

He appears to be making the point at that juncture that reintegration was forced and it was never again going to be a cohesive dressing-room because of the breach of trust which is a valid observation.  Despite his talent many critics at the time thought that the Strauss texts were the point of no return.  This is not to excuse the bullying culture or any or the ire directed at KP by his teammates but it was a potentially explosive environment.

Except wasn't KPGenius before the texts?

Boxing Day the year before. He told Strauss about it, who just looked at him blankly. He told Flower, who shrugged it off. He told Hugh Morris, who said he'd investigate it. He had Alec Stewart as a witness that 'the dressing room' was involved. But nothing was done.

So the texts weren't the only reason for the change room atmosphere.

No - as has been well documented, he blames the bowlers, Swann and Broad in particular (says Jimmy is actually a lovely, introverted bloke who needs to attach himself to an extrovert, firstly Flintoff, then Swann) and obviously Prior (who he rinses mercilessly). Says it happened from about 2010 onward.

Said Broad lied when he finally got to ask him about the Twitter account (didn't meet him again until 'reintegrated' in India).

Got to say, I believe most of what he is saying - you could work most of it out from afar. He reckoned that in Australia last year The Big Cheese ended up doing a lot of Cook's talking because every time that Cook tried, if he made some sort of fumble or mispronunciation, Swann would snigger and titter to himself and it would put Cook off.

Have to say, Bell and Cook come out looking pretty decent people - but he reckoned that Cook is a bit weak when it comes to being his own man in front of the management and let him down on a couple of occasions. Again, you can see that.

Once again shows Cook's lack of captaincy skills

Yeah - he's too nice. He's been cowed by 'da management'. Just isn't up to it. Oh well, he's got 5 months of the ODI job left and about 10 months of the Test job left. I can wait him out.

So who is the FEC?

taipan wrote:So who is the FEC?

Joe Root. Seems like he's been earmarked mainly because he's a ruddy nice bloke, but he did captain Yorkshire to the CC title in the last two championship games with Andrew Not A Racist Gale suspended.

Eoin Morgan would be an option if he could actually play proper cricket.

James Vince (former Eng U19s skipper) has been cutting his captaincy teeth in senior cricket with Hants' T20 side. He's not in the England team as yet, but a long term shout as FEC.

Nope. You were right the first time: Joe Root and nobody else, it doesn’t matter how good he is, it doesn’t matter if they put too much on him and burn him out. He'll be the captain until he tearfully resigns. That's the way it works in England. I'd go for Bell - I love that little guy

If Cook falls on his Sword, Id give the job to Moeen in a heartbeat.

Basil wrote:If Cook falls on his Sword, Id give the job to Moeen in a heartbeat.

Maybe if his batting is up to it. The fact that he's got two facets to his game sort of goes against him as well - there haven't been that many decent AR captains

give the job to I Ron...you guys know it is written in thhe stars that the Belfard is the future of English cricket

Brass Monkey wrote:

Basil wrote:If Cook falls on his Sword, Id give the job to Moeen in a heartbeat.

Maybe if his batting is up to it. The fact that he's got two facets to his game sort of goes against him as well - there haven't been that many decent AR captains

Benaud, Sobers, Kapil, Imran to name a few but all those blokes had been a lot more experienced when they got the gong than Moeen.

Without checking, was Sobers that good a captain? Shaun Pollock wasn't that good and Botham was a failure.

Wasim was OK, but not particularly noteworthy. I'd like to know their stats as well, I think Moeen needs to try to look after his game first - he's a fledgling ATM, keeps getting out stupidly and I doubt he'll have to hoodoo over many teams with the ball as he did with India.