KP's Book

horace wrote:now the poms beating the Bannies in Banindia in their previous series may well have been the high water mark in english cricket over the last 25 years...certainly Oz are not capable of this at the mo

And that wouldn't have happened without Kevin Pietersen's innings at Mumbai.

giles clarke already has airbrushed kp out of the pictures and record from that series

Henry wrote:I just wonder where all the man-management skills went. If you read Nasser's autobiography, it's a wonderful insight into the different ways he handled Gough, Caddick, Tufnell, Thorpe...all very different personalities.

With this current England side, it seems to be a case of "this way or the highway"....otherwise known as the 'Ray Illingworth method'.....And look at the results it's producing on the field....

Should Nasser have a role on the inside rather than just giving his views from the commentary box?

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/cricket/england-players-hate-david-warner-but-i-quite-like-him-says-kevin-pietersen-20141009-113nb4.html

KP sides with Warner but the other poms hate the Aussie. Interesting when KP talks about the fear factor surrounding Trott and Mitch.

So he no longer feels as English as he always proclaimed.

“Whatever passport I carry, I will always have South Africa in my heart.”

Red wrote:So he no longer feels as English as he always proclaimed.

“Whatever passport I carry, I will always have South Africa in my heart.”

There's hope for you yet Red.

Red wrote:So he no longer feels as English as he always proclaimed.

“Whatever passport I carry, I will always have South Africa in my heart.”

The two aren't mutually exclusive. I knew a lady who had lived nearly 50 years in South Africa, who identified herself as South African (despite the ludicrous Yorkshire accent) but she still had an affinity to the country of her birth.

I had sex with a Guyanese once. She felt a bit English for a while.

He also regrets the rather zealous badge kissing of his adopted country's apparel early in his career.

Pietersen indulged in what David Hopps of The Guardian described at the time as a bout of “ardent badge-kissing” upon reaching the landmark.

But in the book, the 34-year-old admits he overplayed his Englishness early in his career, and should not have kissed the badge in the emotion-charged Bloemfontein ODI or got three lions tattooed onto his arm.

“When I went back to play in South Africa (with England in 2004/05) I was still a young kid.

“When I made my first hundred there I should never, ever have kissed the badge on my helmet - I was on a high and trying to make a point but it was a silly, thoughtless thing to have done.”

Pietersen says he regrets disrespecting South African cricket and was misguided to “judge and nail” the political system in the country “just because the quota system didn’t work for me; I didn’t understand enough”.

He concedes, more broadly: “The older I’ve got, the more I’ve realised the mistakes I’ve made.”

Looks like we are getting stuff on a drip-feed.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/10/jimmy-anderson-kevin-pietersen-england-book

Jimmy Anderson finds all this sad.


This is one big egofest!

Paul Collingwood has his say.

“I don’t really understand all of this to be honest,” he said. “The last seven years has been fantastic for English cricket. KP has done a lot for English cricket but also English cricket has done a lot for KP. This is one man’s opinion against everyone else’s. This was one of the most successful teams in English history – three Ashes wins, No1 Test status, a World T20 cup, a series win in India. If you think the England dressing room was as divided as he says, there’s no ******* chance we’d have won any of those things, let me tell you.”

beamer wrote:

Henry wrote:I just wonder where all the man-management skills went. If you read Nasser's autobiography, it's a wonderful insight into the different ways he handled Gough, Caddick, Tufnell, Thorpe...all very different personalities.

With this current England side, it seems to be a case of "this way or the highway"....otherwise known as the 'Ray Illingworth method'.....And look at the results it's producing on the field....

Should Nasser have a role on the inside rather than just giving his views from the commentary box?

The ECB would need to a)ask him, and b)pay him more than Sky do.

Well, Sky effectively fund the ECB anyway...

Interesting discussion about KP on 'The Offsiders' today. The panel thinks he will become a hero out here because of his criticism of the English hierarchy etc. but also instructive to hear their comments re. him and other poms being scared facing Mitch. The made the point that they were surprised given that batsmen had to face a fearsome Windies quartet sans the super protective equipment available today. Maybe the big bats, flat pitches generation got the shock of their life last year when they finally started facing some intimidating bowling again. Of course in those days there were no restrictions re. bumpers per over etc.

Are the offsiders still waxing lyrical about Ewen McKenzie turning the Wallabies around?

All of this is bloody funny though. Especially Ponting, Swann and Pietersen himself. Aggers has to be centre of attention for some reason...

"The last seven years has been fantastic for English cricket."

Surely only 5 years?

tricycle wrote:Are the offsiders still waxing lyrical about Ewen McKenzie turning the Wallabies around?

All of this is bloody funny though. Especially Ponting, Swann and Pietersen himself. Aggers has to be centre of attention for some reason...

"The last seven years has been fantastic for English cricket."

Surely only 5 years?

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.

Another perspective on this from yesterday's oz, with some eager anticipation of how he might be received this summer.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/kevin-pietersen-a-big-hit-for-the-melbourne-stars-and-big-bash-league/story-fnlpdwwz-1227087649225

Interesting parallels with Jim Laker's autobiog.

Sounds like the England dressing room has always been a happy place.

http://www.cricketweb.net/cricketbooks/6312.php

Horrie and Merls will remember the good old days of Amateurs and professionals, with the two groups having different dressing rooms. It was very much the Professional's job to say "yes sir" when given an instruction from an amateur player.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/oct/11/kevin-pietersen-autobiography-rage-riches-sad-ugly

Vic Marks thinks that KP may eventually regret this foray into penmanship.

Also Ali Cook feels hurt over the way this era for English cricket has been tarnished by KP's revelations.

Brendan McArdle expressed similar  sentiments in The Age today.

I wish Ali Cook would stop feeling "hurt" like some sort of naive little boy, toughen up a bit, and start batting and captaining better.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/12/steve-harmison-backs-kevin-pietersen-england-bullying-claims

Harmison weighs into the saga or whatever it is.

Quite a balanced article in essence.

Well, having very recently contracted the bodyf*ck of influenza (which seems to dick me over with alarming regularity every October), I've had the 'pleasure' of reading his book over the last coupla days...

Hmm, where to start? I suppose I'll try to summarise in short bursts: score settling, FIGJAM, IPL, IPL, IPL!!!, me me me me me - why do people say I'm self-absorbed??? Righting media wrongs, warmth for certain people, bile for certain people, love of family, love of South Africa, love of England.

I suppose I became a bit more sympathetic to his twatty dismissals - we expect these people to be perfect - but as he is at pains to explain - he isn't. This is part of his insight:

"I see something in my head and the shot almost invents itself. The ball is coming and I'm thinking, can I hit this for six? All of a sudden it's over. I may be wrong sometimes. I may be right more times. I just can't control it. Instinct takes over. I'm a batter who's on the ball as soon as the bowler's at his mark. As soon as he turns, I'm on it. And this is what happens in the next three or four seconds while he's running up. What field has he set? Which side is he holding it? Is he
holding it cross seam? Is he holding it on the shiny side? What's he trying to do? Is he trying to swing it away? Is it starting to reverse? Then, this is where I think it is going to be. And if it goes right - whack. And away it goes.

People say, why the hell did you do that? and I really can't explain why it did it."

His recounting of the Ashes 2010/11, the series that meant such a great, great deal to all of us, was ghastly as f*ck. I cannot convey how little that seemed to mean to him, in comparison to every other autobiography I've read. So ungenerous in his acknowledgement of some fantastic performances - simply doesn't mention anyone but himself - apart from he once mentions 'Cooky is at his best' - he summarises the gargantuan total to save the Brisbane test, something that barely ever happens for any team (let alone the human gash train called England) by saying 'I don't get to bat in the second innings. Rain affects play and we end up with a draw.'. Unbelievable. Astounding. He takes five pages to summarise the entire series and half of that is berating Matt Prior. Incredible, IMO.

But the underlying currents are that he's insecure, that the English media have dicked him over (which they have - some of the skewed shit just for a story is as we all know it - exceptionally lazy and obtuse journalism - about as valid and thought provoking as a Most Haunted episode). It does seem that Andy Flower loathed him with such a passion that he made his life a bit of a living hell. The media and Flower seemed to connive their way into a consistent media beat-up of him.

Mainly the tones are that the ECB are a bunch of jealous, greedy, self-serving, jobs-for-the-boys complete wankers who couldn't run a local fortnightly newspaper such is their incompetance and that they treat the players like pieces of meat - player welfare means nothing to them: flog and flog them until they're a burnt out husk - whilst they sit back, hands behind head, in their ivory tower with absolutely no concern for anything but the profits. To me, going on what I'd already gleaned, he confirms that they truly are the scum of the earth.

But then he gets back to the IPL again - sort of 'don't treat me differently, but can I be treated differently', 'the guys are just jelly' blah blah, 'IPL is here to stay, change the entire international cricketing schedule for a domestic tournament', 'I'm rich, but I want to be richer because sportsmen have a short shelf life'. M. E. H. Poor Kev.

The ECB seem to hang him out to dry at every opportunity - every single one of the front faces of the ECB seem to loathe him with a passion and use the most minute of things to take him down several pegs. It became clear that they didn't need actual excuses - just that they were going to do it anyway. That's to his credit, then - because I hate the ECB as much as I do the BCCI.

To conclude - KP is great because he makes uncomfortable the comfortable world the ECB live in.

Interesting BM, I will still read it though. He seems to be a bit of a paradox though certainly not in terms of his ego.

As for the bleating, he once said 'It is hard being Kevin Pietersen.'

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.

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

Nothing has changed in English cricket. I was surprised to see that Jim laker went through the same crap over 50 years ago.