Cricket

[Vermilion]

Good listen this. Sounds like Cook was pretty cowardly.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/5lspecials

Just clicked now.

[Catrin]

Sadly I agree. I think Bumble is just having a bit of fun speculating.

Odds on Botham look pretty short!

[EwarWoo]

Odds on Botham look pretty short!

I cant imagine them picking Botham. He would do whatever he liked, including sacking cook and re-instating Petersen if he thought it appropriate.

[Shaggy]

Dave Tickner @tickerscricket 14s
In 2013, KP turned 33 and averaged 36.09

In 2006, Sachin turned 33 and averaged 24.27.
Next five years: 55.42, 48.31, 67.62, 78.10, 47.25

[Shaggy]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/10623154/Ill-informed-barbs-have-hurt-me-and-worse-the-England-team.html

Ill-informed barbs have hurt me and worse, the England team

All the inaccurate comments flying about are sad, but I am moving on and I am excited to be starting all over again

By Matt Prior
8:50PM GMT 06 Feb 2014

It has been a really disappointing last couple of days. Some inaccurate and ill-informed comments have been made that have hurt me and more importantly hurt the England cricket team and English cricket.

That is the saddest thing about it for me, but from a personal point of view I have moved on. At 4pm on Thursday, I was in the nets with Graham Gooch, having my first batting session since The Ashes.

It signals the start of my new beginning and preparation for winning back my England place. Goochy has seen my game for a number of years and we will discuss what I need to work on and together we will come up with a plan.

On the Ashes tour I was inside the England bubble and sometimes you lose perspective because you are so focused on what is going on around you at any given moment. Now I have had a nice period of time at home, riding my bike and spending time with the family.

Stepping out of the England environment has allowed me to look back on events with a fresh eye. I have been able to reassess what happened both on a personal level and from a team perspective.

I have now realised that for the majority of the past year I did not enjoy playing cricket. For a number of years I was able to play under the radar, get on with my job and nobody noticed me.

Other players took the headlines. But after a consistent few years ended with a good tour of New Zealand, I was suddenly pushed to the forefront.

With that comes a huge amount of expectation. I did not deal with that as well as I should have. I put too much pressure on myself to go out and perform. I built every innings up into a massive event, whereas before my great skill was keeping things simple and uncomplicated.

I never looked too far ahead. I just looked at the next match and ensured I performed in the next innings. But last year I started to get ahead of myself.

You want to win so badly, especially in an Ashes series, that sometimes you cannot help but look at what could happen rather than what is actually taking place. You jump ahead, thinking of possible future glories.

I let myself get too involved in that rather than staying in the present, focusing on that day, that session and the next game. I remember when I first started playing professional cricket I would hear experienced pros say you learn something new every day.

I never understood that but I am beginning to get it now. No matter how much experience you have, you can always learn something new about yourself and the game.

The exciting thing for me now is that I see this as a clean slate and a time to start again. Whatever has happened in the past is history. The hundreds and series wins hold no relevance now.

I am starting the summer playing for Sussex, which I am very excited about, and I am going to have to perform well for them to force my way back in to the England team.

I am not looking any further ahead than that. Since arriving home much has changed in the England set-up. It was sad to hear that Andy Flower was standing down. He has been a fantastic coach for this team.

People get drawn into what happened over the past few months but you have to remember when he took over in February 2009 England were sixth in the world rankings and were bowled out for 51 by the West Indies. We were at rock bottom.

Andy was always very honest. You knew with him there was no ulterior motive.

He just wanted the England team to win. You knew if you gave 100 per cent to the England side then he would support you wholeheartedly and that was a nice thing to know.

He was hugely respected for his playing career and the way he pushed us every day to challenge ourselves on and off the pitch. In doing so he got the best out of a lot of players.

But ultimately the coach and support staff can help only so much. In the end the team have to go out and perform. In Australia we let everyone down. Not just Andy. We let ourselves down and our fans down. It was a horrible time.

But now we have the chance to rebuild and grow again under a new coach, whoever that may be. It is an exciting prospect. We are at rock bottom and there is only one way to go and that is upwards.

It is exciting to have someone come in with new ideas and let us see where this England team can go over the next couple of years.

I will not be involved over the next few weeks in the West Indies and World Twenty20 but I hope that the guys can go and perform well and start put some pride back into playing for England.

We need some wins to start this new era off on the right foot.

[Shaggy]

Jonathan Agnew @Aggerscricket
Prior and all players on same rules about speaking out re KP as everyone else, of course….Nothing can be said by anyone until October

[Shaggy]

Jonathan Agnew @Aggerscricket
Gagging till October because that is the end of his central contract.

[Liverpool]

so between now and then hes going to about a £250 k from his central contract and were not gonnna play him

[Shaggy]

Totally ridiculous. This cunt - Paul Newman - is a long-standing KP hater and a real **** stain.

EXCLUSIVE: All over on the whistle... KP's cheery tune after final Ashes dismissal was the final straw for England as more clashes with Flower and Cook are revealed

• Sportsmail can reveal Pietersen whistled happily after his final dismissal
• Comes after Pietersen's Instagram post insisting he was 'so sad' that his England career had ended, accompanied by the picture his last dismissal
• 'It said everything about his apparent commitment' said one person in the dressing room at the final Test in Sydney

• He was also perceived to be undermining coach Andy Flower
• Pietersen and Alastair Cook disagreed over the best preparation for the final Ashes Test, which ended in defeat and confirmation of a 5-0 whitewash

By PAUL NEWMAN

PUBLISHED: 22:30, 6 February 2014 | UPDATED: 22:38, 6 February 2014

To his millions of followers, Kevin Pietersen presented a picture of a loyal man who had been forced into exile from the country he loves.

Twenty-four hours after being dismissed by England, Pietersen took to Instagram to post a picture of him looking distraught after his final Test innings in Sydney as England crashed to a defeat that sealed their 5-0 Ashes humiliation.

‘So sad that this will now be the last time I leave a field in an England shirt,’ posted Pietersen. ‘I love England and honestly hope they have every success in the future.’

Sweet words, but those who observed him in the England dressing room saw a different side of KP.

Sportsmail can reveal that as soon as Pietersen was away from the public eye in the Sydney pavilion he whistled happily all the way into the England dressing room and continued as he sat down in his place alongside team-mates.

Pietersen’s apparent nonchalance over his dismissal, at the start of an embarrassing clatter of wickets that left English cricket as a complete laughing stock, shocked his team-mates and the England management.

Some senior England figures believe he departed the international scene with a whiff of hypocrisy. His actions were considered another example of the attitude and poor example that had completely exasperated senior figures and convinced them it was the end of the road for their gifted maverick.

‘It said everything about his apparent commitment to England,’ one of the people in that dressing room told Sportsmail on Thursday, ‘It confirmed we had lost our way, lost the team ethos that had taken us so far.’

In isolation it may not seem too serious but to a chastened England, who had welcomed Pietersen back after the Andrew Strauss text-gate scandal, it was pretty much the final straw.

Pietersen had started the Ashes as an integrated part of the England group but as time went on old habits began to creep back, with his behaviour starting to deteriorate after the Perth Test.

Sportsmail’s information is that Pietersen was perceived to be undermining coach Andy Flower, whom Pietersen tried to oust as batting coach when he led his failed coup against Peter Moores in 2008, and whose relationship never recovered from ‘text-gate’.

There was the pivotal team meeting after the Melbourne Test, revealed in these pages on Thursday, where Pietersen misjudged the mood of other players and started trying to garner support for his anti-Flower stance.

Pietersen’s decision to whistle a happy tune after his demise in the final Test was not the only time he clashed with his team-mates in Sydney.

Reports that he squared up to captain Alastair Cook are wide of the mark but the pair, Sportsmail understands, did disagree over the best preparation for the final Test. Cook wanted to concentrate on fitness, where England had been found wanting, whereas Pietersen thought they should be working on skills.

It was then that Flower confronted Pietersen over what he saw as attempts to turn younger players against him after the Melbourne meeting and decided in his mind that England’s record runscorer had to go if they were going to emerge from the ashes of their worst ever tour with their team principles reinstated.

At that stage it looked sure that Flower was going to stay to oversee that rebuilding process but even after he resigned last Friday Pietersen had fallen out with far too many important figures for any sort of reprieve to be granted.

He was told his fate on Monday night, ahead of a final meeting between Cook, managing director Paul Downton and one-day coach Ashley Giles, and knew that his England career was over when he conducted a coaching session at The Kia Oval on Tuesday. It was confirmed by the ECB on Wednesday.

It is important these details emerge because the ECB remain adamant that they cannot publicly say what Pietersen has done wrong for legal reasons, with the last details of Pietersen’s contract settlement still being finalised.

That decision is leaving them open to ridicule from England fans, who expect a proper explanation. There was even support for Pietersen on Thursday, from Prime Minister David Cameron as only a one-sided version of events has so far emerged.

James Whitaker, the new national selector, became the first man involved in the seismic decision to speak publicly about the sacking on Thursday, but his appearance on Sky TV was little more than an embarrassing shambles.

No newspapers were allowed at the announcement of England’s squad for their tours of West Indies and Bangladesh and Whitaker’s answers to Sky’s Tim Abraham, who was admirable in the circumstances, seemed strictly controlled.

However, the usually personable Whitaker did allow himself to say of Pietersen’s sacking: ‘In a way it was a tricky decision but in another way it gives other players an opportunity to excel in that environment. There is a legal position and I’m not at liberty to say anything else.

‘Any team has certain values that good teams adhere to and carry with them. England over the past four or five years have shown these good values. Over time they can (slip) a bit but now is the time to rewrite those. We want to win back the positive perception of what the England team are all about.’

It has been a miserable week for that objective and England clearly remain paranoid about any confidentiality clause in their agreement with Pietersen. But if one exists, isn’t Pietersen breaking it by leaking details of the Melbourne team meeting to his mouthpiece Piers Morgan?

Pietersen’s attack on Prior, the most selfless of England players, via Morgan on Twitter on Wednesday was a spectacular own goal for his status as a martyr and perhaps revealing of the real reasons behind his departure.

And surely it frees up senior England figures to say far more than Whitaker managed on Thursday.

[RichC]

His final bullet point about the disagreement on preparation for the final test with Cook..... Ummmm if true surely he was proven right after being dry humped 5-0?

[captainfog]

His final bullet point about the disagreement on preparation for the final test with Cook..... Ummmm if true surely he was proven right after being dry humped 5-0?

[Shaggy]

Apparently there's no question that the Cook/KP disagreement took place...Cook felt they were fitter than us and that it was a big factor in them thrashing us, KP disagreed and felt we were short on skills. From the outside looking in it's not hard to disagree with Pietersen

Cook sounds like Moyes.

"Right lads, get running up those hills for three hours then we'll have a ten minute net at the end"

[RichC]

I think it's abundantly clear we lacked the skills to beat the Aussies, fitness is an important part of being a sportsman but did we **** lose because they were fitter than us.

For me the two main reasons were short on skills and they wanted it more, so much more than us

[Shaggy]

[Shaggy]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/cricket/article-2554320/FREDDIE-FLINTOFF-EXCLUSIVE-England-piles-money-KP-theyve-hung-try.html

FLINTOFF EXCLUSIVE: England made piles of money out of KP... now they've hung him out to dry

PUBLISHED: 22:03, 7 February 2014 | UPDATED: 22:03, 7 February 2014

First, the explanation. Freddie Flintoff sits down for coffee and spells out why he wishes to talk about England’s Ashes debacle. ‘I haven’t said anything all winter,’ he tells me. ‘I’ve been asked, but I haven’t spoken. Then you see something happening and you think, “No, that’s just not right”.’

So what’s not right? Kevin Pietersen’s not right; or rather his treatment at the hands of the ECB.

Flintoff admits he didn’t always see eye to eye with England’s finest stroke-playing batsman during his time as captain - but he never doubted Pietersen’s commitment to the cause, and believes he has been hung out to dry by senior players and officials fearful for their own futures after the tour from hell.

‘The England teams I played in, the buzzword was always the “group”,’ Flintoff says. ‘That was the mantra, “The group is close, the group is tight” - and when we were all doing well, that was true. The group stuck together because the group all wanted to take credit for victory and get their column inches in the newspaper.

‘But it’s when you’re not doing well that you need team spirit, and I haven’t seen too many people coming out and accepting responsibility for this one. The group doesn’t seem to be a group any more. They’ve got one player who can take the blame and the rest of them want to go about their business and let him take the fall.

‘It’s not that we couldn’t bowl them out, not that we couldn’t score runs, not that we got outplayed - it’s Kevin Pietersen’s fault. I’d have more respect for some of the senior players if they held their hands up, rather than letting it all get heaped on one bloke.’

Flintoff is not part of any Pietersen entourage - ‘I’m on the same side as Piers Morgan and David Cameron, so something’s wrong’ - but he knows the feeling of being the tallest poppy in the field.

England captain during the last Ashes whitewash, Flintoff paid the price, but has long believed others who shared some of the responsibility on the 2006-07 tour were less willing to confess their shortcomings.

‘Kevin’s the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t he?’ he adds. ‘If England win he gets applauded, it’s an easy piece to write for the journalists and all his team-mates say he’s wonderful. If we lose, it’s as if it’s his fault, the same people in the Press slag him off and the team melt away. Everyone hides behind him.

‘Lose 5-0 in Australia and it falls on someone to be the scapegoat. In 2006 it was me. I was captain and I didn’t go about things the right way at times, so I deserved some of it. But not all of it. Sometimes you need help as a player, an arm around you, or someone to back you. Kevin deserved that. It wasn’t just him out there. I’d like someone to start talking about the group again, and not just when it suits.

‘If his attitude was that bad, why did he play five Tests? Who made the decision to drop him? Do they genuinely believe we are better off without him, or are they just fearful for their own jobs and too afraid to say no? I can’t imagine what Kevin could have done, or what the ECB could announce, that would allow this to make sense.

‘Kevin Pietersen was one of the two best cricketers I played with, alongside Marcus Trescothick. Not always the easiest, but I’m not saying I was either. You all have your moments. I liked that if he had a gripe, he would front it up. You knew exactly where you stood and I never had a problem with that.

‘Some of the so-called team players would give you everything while they were stood in front of you, and then go back to their hotel rooms to whisper about you. I had a better relationship with Kevin than many of the others.

‘Kevin’s a proud man who wants to win. And when you are in a side getting beat every week it’s hard to swallow, so he’s not the type to let that pass without getting involved.

‘He was the same with me. If he thought something wasn’t right in preparation or there was a player he didn’t think was working as hard as him, he would say. He’s got a fantastic work ethic. In 2006-07 he seemed to have a problem with the short ball, so he got peppered for hours in the nets and ended up scoring 600 runs. It seems he fell out with Alastair Cook over a fitness session before the Sydney Test. Kevin thought it was more important to work on technique and I’m inclined to agree. You’re not going to get fitter with one work-out before a Test.

‘If the fitness was off, the problem started a lot earlier and needed to be addressed then. At 4-0 down, when none of them could score a run or take a wicket, what is the point in a naughty-boy session?’

Some doubt Pietersen’s commitment to the cause, but not Flintoff.

‘He lost 5-0 yet he still wants more,’ he insists. ‘That is an admission of his desire. It would be easy to walk away from it. He’s a wealthy lad. Yet I spoke to him last year and asked him about retiring after this series and he put me in my place.

‘He wanted to play for England for a long time and made that very clear. He wanted 10,000 Test runs and if he is driven to achieve that, it would have been good for the team. He wasn’t doing it for the money. He wanted a legacy, but he’s been the victim of his own success. He’s the box-office player, he gets the endorsements, he gets the profile. I know what that is like. When it is going well people are behind you. Then, if you stop performing, there is resentment and jealousy.’

Flintoff has had a bee in his bonnet about this tour for a while. In a conversation several weeks ago, he said he considered Andy Flower’s position untenable after such a heavy defeat, adding that the uber-professional buttoned-down approach was counter-productive.

England’s players would benefit from the freedom introduced by Australia’s Darren Lehmann, he said - a view he reiterates now, after Flower’s departure.

‘When I started as a professional cricketer, it wasn’t a professional sport,’ Flintoff claims. ‘It only said it was. During my career it changed so much - and I tried to change too, but now it’s gone too far.

‘I first saw the signs before we left for that 2006-07 series. We had won the Ashes, but there was no enjoyment. The ECB were holding meetings as if we were going to war. They would be talking worst-case scenarios, building it up as if we would be spat on in the street.

‘Landing in Australia and they were talking about how we needed to be sneaked in by the back door because they were expecting chaos. It turned out one of the Minogue sisters was on our plane, so she took the attention and we stood there, looking at each other. Eventually someone said, “Just get on the bus, lads”.

‘Andy Flower has carried that on. He is quite dominating, quite controlling. The players need time to breathe and express themselves. That should be point one for any new coach. Let the players go out without fear of failure, let them eat what they want, within reason. I can’t think of anything worse than tofu. Let’s have some meat.

‘Lehmann taking over Australia may be good for our game, because he has shown how to strike the perfect balance. Yes, cricket needs to be professional, but it also needs to be a sport. There is a lot happening at the moment in that England team and it’s all very strange.

You could see it last summer. The 3-0 win flattered us because the Australians were plainly getting better, but we weren’t. Other things crept in, too. Peeing on the wicket at The Oval wasn’t good.

‘We’ve all wondered what possessed us to do things in life, me especially, but as a group you’d think someone would have stopped that. It was disrespectful to Australia. It was as if we thought we could do what we wanted.

‘Meanwhile, Darren Lehmann was stripping things back to basics, turning his team into fighting, aggressive Aussies and keeping it simple. They weren’t turning up for matches like us, with riders longer than Mariah Carey’s.

‘I was worried after the first Test in Brisbane when Cook was interviewed and asked about preparation. He said he would be sticking to the same plans as the summer but that’s standing still. Even when you’re successful you’ve got to strive to move forward.

‘The Australians were making progress. I don’t think they’re the best team but their aggression took England aback and we couldn’t return it. I was at an ECB awards ceremony and Jimmy Anderson picked up a Barmy Army award for sledging Mitchell Johnson. Now the boot’s on the other foot, we don’t like it. You’ve got to be careful.

‘Stuart Broad took the local newspaper into the Press conference after day one in Brisbane to try to score points. He’d got a few wickets but we should have bowled them out more cheaply - it’s a dangerous game and we got found out. We ended up acting like victims and the Aussies knew they had us.

‘As good as you think you are, the game does get you. The bad run is always just around the corner and we should have realised that.

‘I remember in a match against Pakistan telling Shoaib Akhtar that he looked like Tarzan and bowled like Jane. He got me next ball. I think the worst I ever gave it out was to Yuvraj Singh, the over before he hit Stuart Broad for six sixes. That went well.

‘I played for Lancashire against Matthew Hayden and he was 90 not out overnight. We had a meeting and the senior players decided to sledge him. Actually, they decided I should sledge him. It was my third game. So I stood at silly point while Gary Yates bowled off-spin and absolutely gave it to him. He got out trying to cut the ball so hard at me that he edged it behind.

‘It was a temporary dressing room, on stilts, and I could see it was shaking where he was in such a fury. I walked off the field on the opposite side at lunch because I thought he’d be waiting for me. Before I went out to bat, he came up to me. “You think you’re special, don’t you?” “Er, not really”. “Well, this game has a way of biting you on the arse. Remember that”.

‘I made 100, and breezed past him. “Still waiting for that bite, Matt”. But it was so true, so right. I’ve seen this England team giving out verbals on TV but once the Aussies stopped being nice and got that spite back, we didn’t like it and the tour became a disaster.

‘Lehmann got his side playing for each other. Even last summer when they were getting beat, they lost as a team. That’s hard to do.

‘Graeme Swann’s great, but he might look back in a few years and think walking away after three Test matches, even if he was injured or about to be dropped, wasn’t right. This is a guy who says he is the heartbeat of the team because of his character - he owed it to the other players to see the tour out.

‘Scott Borthwick needed someone to sit on his shoulder, to talk him through it, and Swann owed at least that to the side.

‘Did Swann’s decision help England? No. What message did it send to the opposition about where England were as a group when the best bowler went home? If you were in that Australia dressing room, you would have loved it.’

Flintoff’s belief is that English cricket needs an overhaul and, for this reason, it was wrong to drop Pietersen before a new coach was appointed.

‘If I was considering coaching England, I’d want Kevin Pietersen,’ he added. ‘The job is less attractive without him. You’d want the best players. Graham Ford, Gary Kirsten - I’m sure these people would want Kevin.

‘I don’t think any situation is irretrievable. Yes, those text messages during the match with South Africa were not good. But Kevin ate a bit of humble pie and got on with it, so whatever happened in Australia could have been resolved, too.

‘Michael Clarke and Shane Watson have also had their problems, but they put them aside this winter. You’ll never have a dressing room where everyone likes each other. You’re put together because you’ve got a shared talent for cricket.

‘It’s like any other workplace: you’ve got mates, you’ve got the guys you can rub along with, and the odd one you’re not having under any circumstances. As long as you come together on the field, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to invite these people to weddings, just stick by each other in games.

‘Michael Vaughan wouldn’t be remembered as a great England captain without Kevin Pietersen. I couldn’t have turned in some of my performances without Ashley Giles making me look good by bowling at the dog end for hours. This England side all owe some of their success to Kevin. He has helped them win, and that brings in sponsors and money. When it’s going well they all embrace it, and now they need to be honest and not let one guy carry the can.’

And, that off his chest, he departs. Still fiery. Still Fred.