What do you guys make of the Kevin Pietersen escapades with the "powers that be" in English cricket?
It seems helluva disruptive to have such a public fallout amongst the captain and the coach and even worse that the administrators haven't been able to cool it off?
So what do you do now - back the player or back the coach?
It's a tough one - big season ahead of England with the West Indies and the Ashes ahead of them. It doesn't help that their side seems shy of firepower in terms of players - if they can't trust the support structures from the side of the field, how the hell can they be expected to have confidence on the field?
Weak administrators off the field seem to have translated into weak players on the field for England - what do you think?
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6 comments:
Back the players. It's simple, without them, you have no customers. Besides England's coach has been under question for sometime now, and the ECB, like their countries political failures, need to wake up, get a backbone and do what is right for the supporters and players. Such rubbish with the politics now in this great game.
Indeedy... No backbone off the field = no backbone on the field... Needed a South African to give them a bit of fire in their side when we gave them KP!
Good article there Marc.
I think it is common sense. The boards will usually back the players on these types of situations. This has been going on for far too long, so I am not that surprised. It is not the first time there has been such an open argument between the coaches and the captains. There have been many between Pakistan captains and their coaches as well as the Indian captains and their coaches. A good example would be, the Indian coach, Greg Chapell, who was "let go" after one of their series defeats. There was alot of conflict whether to add Ganguly into the side or not.
England board has been on fire since the Stanford matches. The team made it clear that they weren't supportive of it, afterwards.
The Vaughan conflict is a bit tricky. Him, being in the side will definitely help them during the Ashes series. I don't see him contributing much with bat or ball though. KP is really turning out to be a powerful figure in the side. Lets see if he influential enough to bring something positive to the table, when the side is really struggling.
I just feel KP is in the wrong team, he should have stuck it out with the SA. He would be much more successful there.
Hey Jawad...
Nice response there. That's part of why I think Gary Kirsten has commanded such respect and enjoyed some success with that explosive Indian side so far...
Sorry disagree about KP being in the wrong side - he'd be unlikely to have made the SA side irrespective of quota / player of colour issues...
He's a decent player but he stands out in a weak side but would be considered in average in either SA or Australia...
With due respect I suspect you could pick 10 other Aussies batters who would be ahead of him in your current first choice lineup and a similar situation for SA
KP, a weak player? jeez! He has been pretty successful in his own backyard as well as others. He was the only one who stood out against the strong Australian side, in the last Ashes series. Warne and KP's clash was one of the best i've seen in that series.
He is probably one of the last UNorthodox and aggressive batsmen that are left in the game.
Are you saying, you would rather have Ashwell Prince in the side then KP? Sounds like you guys are running a pretty tight ship down in SA.
Would I rate him higher then Ponting, tendulkar or lara? ofcourse not, but I wouldn't rate him as average either. I think he is just as good as Smith. KP's
record speaks for itself.
Apart from Pietersen's captaincy, which so far, is a bit of a hype. I think any team would be happy to have the guy.
Prince over KP anyday... Duminy, Van Jaarsveld even Puttick can all play the game as hard as well as he can...
Smith is a mile better than him. He is one of the fastest cricketers in the history of the game to reach 6000 runs playing against the worlds best - he's not far off Tendulkars record. Graeme Smith will be remembered as one of the worlds greats...
He doesn't have much of a reputation in SA and most of the cricketing and non cricketing people I've spoken to reckon the only people that rate him highly are the international media.
His excuses that there were no places for him in a domestic side because of transformation is very weak... All the franchises we have - many who could certainly have used him - saw somebody who played B-Team cricket and had 10 other batters better than him...
KP is capable and has tough "cricket" attitude which I believe brings him a lot of runs but personally I doubt he will be remembered as one of the worlds greats.
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