The Cricket Thread

[al_pacino]

If you want to win bowling first must be the best option and unfortunately that is what happened.

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

0-1

 

[Gb160]

Great Start.

 

[JCRD]

Cracking start by England

 

[Arnoldtoo]

Here's Arnie, the calm voice of reason ...

Fucking hell Roy, what the fuck are you doing slashing at the first ball, trying to edge the 2nd and managing to do so with the 3rd. If you want to be a Test opener learn at least to start like one.

 

[LeSoupeKitchen]

It's a spectacularly poor effort from the crowd in terms of wearing red.

 

[cider spurs]

Hazlewood looking good thus far. Bowled some 'rippers' for Australia.

 

[Wsussexspur]

Yet again root fails! needs to give up the captaincy and go back to concentrating on his batting.

 

[Ossie'sAardvark]

Leach to open next test?

 

[dondo]

I've defended Pietersen before, but lets be honest he's an extremely difficult person to manage - highly temperamental, huge ego yet also a pretty fragile character. Also is very blunt and has no filter. It's inevitable at some point he will cause issues.

Looking back in hindsight I also don't think his heart was in it anymore, which is what started a lot of the problems with the management, and if that's the case probably best to remove him from the team.

For a rough timeline and what happened and who was to blame - I think in the lead up to 2012 when it all blew up it's clear he didn't like Flower and his regime and his eye started wandering towards the T20 leagues and to pick and choose his England commitments. This puts him at odds with the management and Strauss who backs them, plus sets him apart from others in the dressing room.

There is then the big blow up over his texts to SA players. Idiotic and self-inflicted and whatever his issues with team mates probably right to be punished, but I do think he had a point about the Twitter account and others like Broad were quite obviously guilty of also betraying trust in the dressing room and going against their team mates and should have had a similar punishment but it got overlooked.

The problems after that were because none of the previous got resolved. Cook just got him back in the team, only to sit back and let things unfold. KP comes back still not liking Flower's coaching regime, pissed off at management, and gunning for certain individuals. The "bowlers clique" (and Prior) obviously don't like him and are out of control with some of their behaviour. It didn't take long for it to go wrong again......

They had to try and get past it. New coach, new captain, KP out, Prior and Swann retired from that grouping. It was needed.

There was some pretty petty behaviour towards him though which you wouldn't expect from professionals in charge. When he got that huge triple century for instance and they rushed out a response of basically "great knock KP, by the way you're definitely never going to play for England again" seemed a bit of a cheap shot to me and not the way an organisation should behave.

No doubt he was a difficult character to handle and some of his comments to teammates were bang out of order but the management team should have sorted it out imo.
They could have gave him an choice, step out of line again and your out but they gave him false hope by saying “play CC again and if you score runs you will be considered” he did and then he was still not picked and IIRC he cancelled an 20/20 contract to play CC

 

[mpickard2087]

No doubt he was a difficult character to handle and some of his comments to teammates were bang out of order but the management team should have sorted it out imo.
They could have gave him an choice, step out of line again and your out but they gave him false hope by saying “play CC again and if you score runs you will be considered” he did and then he was still not picked and IIRC he cancelled an 20/20 contract to play CC

I'm not sure that's possible though with someone like that. Pietersen is so blunt and sees it in black and white and if you lose him and he gets a negative opinion of you, that's it. He wasn't going to forgive ECB management, and he wasn't going to forgive the likes of Broad and Anderson.

As I said I agree some of what they did looked petty, and almost as if they were enjoying stringing him along, but a little while down the line Strauss took charge, someone who KP had totally burnt his bridges with and had reason to distrust him, and that probably changed the policy to a definite no.

 

[Sandros Shiny Head]

This partnership better hang around, Stokes and Woakes are the only 2 left I can see scoring more than 10

 

[Spurs_Bear]

No doubt he was a difficult character to handle and some of his comments to teammates were bang out of order but the management team should have sorted it out imo.
They could have gave him an choice, step out of line again and your out but they gave him false hope by saying “play CC again and if you score runs you will be considered” he did and then he was still not picked and IIRC he cancelled an 20/20 contract to play CC

It was more along the lines of "unless you are playing CC you wont be considered", and then Strauss took over as Director of Cricket and the rest is history. The only thing that looked bad was on the day that Strauss travelled to tell Pietersen he wasn't going to get back in he had plundered 300 against Leics the previous day.

I've seen KP live, been wowed by his batting and feel that he could have had another year at least in test cricket, but there's no getting away from the fact that he is/was a complete **** and had burnt all his bridges.

 

[LSUY]

KP was a great player but a knob. He told his captain at Notts during the final game of the season that he wanted to leave and then threatened to take the club to court because they insisted he play out the final year of his contract.

 

[theShiznit]

Peter Siddle looks like an alternate universe evil Joe Swash...

 

[cider spurs]

Aussies to bat today anyone ??.

 

[JCRD]

Rain pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease

 

[Archibald&Crooks]

We’ll put on a really good show my arse

Bairstow will be out before I finish the dump I’m about to have

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

Roy, Root, Denley, Buttler, Bairstow.

All are either not good enough and/or bang out of form for this England team.

It is honestly fucking embarrassing how lamely they give their wicket away. They couldn’t give a fuck.

 

[SargeantMeatCurtains]

138-5 and one of our perceived best batsmen, a guy I’ve endorsed for the captaincy, is out needlessly sweeping.

I’m honestly fucking done with this shambles of a “team”.