Hope NZ and Aussies tear them a new one this summer.Cricket
- Thread starter EdWeatherall
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Hope NZ and Aussies tear them a new one this summer.Who are you going to drop for cruntface anyway? Ballance, Bell or Root?
All notorious cnuts, all tolerated for the good of the English game.
Drop Stokes because he's not good enough yet, drop Jordan for the same reason, pick a proper third seamer and then pick Mooen solely for his bowling or a spinner that they rate higher instead.
Cook/Lyth/Ballance/KP/Root/Bell/Buttler is a far stronger top 7 than the one that played in Barbados. I don't trust the bowling attack of Anderson, Broad, Jordan, Stokes, Ali to take 20 wickets either. Far too reliant on Anderson and Broad having a good day and no wicket threat from the third/fourth seamer.
In any dressing room there are egos bouncing around, being a crunt who isn't a team player is a different matter.
Barely matters in cricket though - it's the most individualistic of team sports. Let KP come in, score runs and get the captain to sort out the teenage-girl drama.
It matters in every team sport (and in every endeavour in the wider world). No one is bigger than the team.
An egotistical cnut who averages 50 is better than a team player who averages 30, regardless of whether he's well liked or not.
Not if you lose the match/series. In any event Pietersen's average is inferior to Ballance and about the same as Root and Bell plus he tends to blow out in a clutch.
The ECB's are so incompetent that they've made the entire cricketing world side with Kevin Pietersen.
Last year was pretty bad but the last week has been hilariously bad.
Pujara made a century in Yorkshire's win. Nice.
Adil Rasheed took 4/78 and 4/48 for Yorkshire against Hampshire. Worth a try against NZ?
Pietersen "in the clutch" is better than Bell .... of course I pretty much mean India and Australia here. Maybe he doesn't have a whole series he can call his own, but he averages 50+ against those 2. And 2 exceptionally important innings against both too, one which regained the Ashes against the best Aussie team ever, and one which won England a series in India.
I probably wouldn't drop anyone for him right now, but I also wouldn't have told him he had no chance, whos your fifth choice for that middle order if one of them get injured? since you can't even go with Trott now you've forced him into retirement by shoehorning him into an opening slot though he was probably done either way.
You could always have Root back to opener anyway, but I really don't want them messing him about. He's happy where he is, he's probably happy anywhere though, but he's in hot form on top.
I probably wouldn't drop anyone for him right now, but I also wouldn't have told him he had no chance, whos your fifth choice for that middle order if one of them get injured? since you can't even go with Trott now you've forced him into retirement by shoehorning him into an opening slot though he was probably done either way.
You could always have Root back to opener anyway, but I really don't want them messing him about. He's happy where he is, he's probably happy anywhere though, but he's in hot form on top.
My abiding memory of cruntface is him striding out with 3 wickets down for not a lot and proceeding to throw his down the toilet too with a ludicrous 'attacking' shot.
Pietersen was no more useless than any other English batsman in difficult situations. Ian Bell pads his stats vs weaker opposition and apart from one cracking series vs. a transitioning Australia side in 2013 (?) I can't really remember any particularly great or important innings. The difference with Pietersen and every other English batsman around now and probably in the years before him is his ability to crush a bowling attack and completely change a game within a session or two. No other player in this team can play an innings like he did vs. Australia at The Oval in 2005, or vs. South Africa at Headingley in 2012 or vs. India at Ahmedabad in 2012.
If Strauss had any sense he'd have never called a meeting and he would have trotted out 'we're happy with our middle order at the moment,' and left it at that. Pietersen's injured now so they could have easily called into question his health and ability to play tests now but instead they blew their load too early and look like a bunch of dicks.
If Strauss had any sense he'd have never called a meeting and he would have trotted out 'we're happy with our middle order at the moment,' and left it at that. Pietersen's injured now so they could have easily called into question his health and ability to play tests now but instead they blew their load too early and look like a bunch of dicks.
FFS Pietersen's the forking dick, when they said 'if he scores runs in county cricket' it was clearly in the knowledge that he was off to IPL and NOT an invitation to an audition. But being a dickhead he obviously didn't get the message.
There's no way Pietersen is pissing away 250k on the off chance of making the England team or to make the ECB look bad (they are more than capable of doing that themselves). He spoke to Graves, made the move, made some runs and got axed by Strauss. You can look at this two ways, Strauss going on an ego trip or Strauss trying to nip this long shot in the bud. However to say to someone that you do not trust them and then to offer them an advisory role is ridiculously stupid. Pietersen is a dick, no doubt, but the ECB have been tying themselves in knots over his career for bloody ages now and they have managed to make themselves look like even bigger dicks.
It's classic English upperclass understatement - 'just fork off and die' is coded 'score a few runs in county cricket'
The ECB could have shown much more tact though, string him along for a bit and wait for him either to get restless enough to return to being a T20 mercenary or get injured (which he has gone and done). Even then, if he didn't get restless or injured and he did stay at Surrey and England's middle order did wobble in the Summer then at least you'd have that option there.
Two words for Kev, second word 'off'.
Possibly play all 4.
I don't think Ali or Stokes offer enough as allrounders to play in the test side currently. Or send Root back up the order now that Trott has retired.
I don't think that works (smacks of red light, green light - gotta av Kev). You need 5 batsmen, a wicketkeeper, an all-rounder, a spinner and 3 fast/seam bowlers.
Stories in the guardian and the telegraph suggesting Gillespie might be put off applying for the England job as a result of how much control he'll have over team matters.
Hardly surprising. Strauss was picked by the ECB because he hates Pietersen. Cook doesn't want Pietersen anywhere near the team because of personal issues. Bell's statement yesterday clarified that the rest of the players have no particular issue with Pietersen - some may not particularly like him, but do you like all your work colleagues?
The ECB has made an utter debacle of this matter. All Summer now, anytime the batsmen fail or England lose a game the talk will be of Pietersen. Cook especially will - rightly - be under intense scrutiny both as a batsman and captain.
No decent coach with any self respect will touch the England job after this, and rightly so. The ECB has achieved the impossible in making English cricket an even bigger laughing stock than it was after the World Cup.
The treatment of Pieterson hasnt been great during this debacle but i am getting sick and tired of this media campaign to have him reinstated and the fact he is being made out to be some saint. Who was it that sent text messages slagging off his team mates and who released a book slagging off currrent players. Would a football manager just allow a player to walk into the team after this? The ECB should have been clear from the beginning and Graves has been a pillock but Pieterson is no saint.
The situation is not comparable, do you think any football manager e.g SAF, Mourinho would allow a player who has done what he has to waltz back in the team?
Also Strauss was the best of the candidates who went for the job, this was after Michael (likes to run his mouth) Vaughn withdrew. If the new Director of English Cricket feels Pieterson then that is his decision to make and he must carry the can. This media campaign in favour of Pieterson led by Piers (publish fake photo of british soldiers) Morgan is just pathethic. Although the ECB have handled this just as poorley especially that moron Graves.
One thing i do agree on is that English cricket is most definitly a joke at the moment.
If he was their best player then yes, they would, after being suitably disciplined. Bell confirmed the players have no particular issue with Pietersen but Cook, Strauss and the blazers do.
Vaughan withdrew because of the conditions imposed by the ECB which limited the scope of the role i.e. they wanted to be in charge and simply have someone to do their bidding. Strauss fitted that role perfectly, as has been witnessed already. The fact that he is Cook's bosom-buddy also counted in his favour.
Any other country in the world would have handled this whole situation differently. We even now have Graves lying about what he said, claiming Pietersen misunderstood him. If that was indeed the case why didn't he contact Pietersen immediately and put him straight when Pietersen was coming out in the press saying he'd been told to go back to the County game and score runs, then he could get back into the team. He had weeks and weeks to rectify the situation if that were indeed the case but he didn't. That's as clear evidence as anyone would need that he's now lying about what he told Pietersen.
Pietersen heard what he wanted to hear, the prize dick.
So why did Graves wait from March until now to correct him?
I know the media don't think so but he has more important things to attend to than crap like this
The most favourable outcome from Strauss becoming director of cricket is not having to listen to him commentating.
I've never liked Pieterson with his divisive and arrogant attitude. However, MCC has somehow made me sympathetic to his cause.
You really have to be a special kind of an idiot to support ECB on this, there is nothing wrong in saying that you don't want KP anywhere near the team but to genuinely try to justify what the ECB has done is just hilarious. All those who keep talking about the book forget that the book came after he was dropped and also ECB has for a long time kept different standards for different people (Swann's book or Broad on Twitter). Anyways I don't support England but think the issue goes beyond Pietersen in the end, he is a dick no doubt but the ECB have no idea how to run Cricket and are making a mockery of themselves on a daily basis
What are you talking about? The ECB are going about the business of changing the England manager and rebuilding the team, no one gives a fork about KP and his ego (except the media and its dupes).
Well good luck with that, would be interesting to see which top coach wants to enter this setup.
I'll be surprised if it's not Gillespie.
Actually, he didn't. That was before he took up his role with the ECB.
Next irrelevant excuse?
Gillespie will surely have more sense. It's clear whoever is appointed won't have authority over selection decisions.
ICC can feck off. Bunch of proper cnuts.
Eh?
Only people in the wrong here is ZC.. I would be terrified of touring Pakistan as a player.
More ECB/Strauss/Cook lies exposed - in an interview in the Telegraph Broad says he's never been consulted but he'd have no problem with Pietersen coming back.
This directly contradicts Strauss' assertion that the players had been consulted and they don't want him back in the team. Both Bell and Broad have said it now, so it's not just some reporter stirring it.
As I've suspected all along, the Pietersen issue has nothing to do with the players. It's purely down to the blazers at the ECB, their new mouthpiece Strauss, and his bum-boy Cook.
This directly contradicts Strauss' assertion that the players had been consulted and they don't want him back in the team. Both Bell and Broad have said it now, so it's not just some reporter stirring it.
As I've suspected all along, the Pietersen issue has nothing to do with the players. It's purely down to the blazers at the ECB, their new mouthpiece Strauss, and his bum-boy Cook.