The Ashes

[captainfog]

(It will be fun, Ashes series are always fun)

It's not going to be fun, it's going to be humiliating. They are going to thrash us.

[Scratch]

I could understand it if they had told him that he needed a few more innings under his belt, prove you've got the old magic back, but to rule him out completely is just plain daft.

And as for any incoming coach, it looks like we now know that they will not have much say in the picking of the team, and are just a figurehead to be thrown to the lions if...when...England fail again.

[Shaggy]

Yep, Darren Lehmann has spoken out and said anyone taking the job must be a mug as they know they won't really be in charge with the Head Boy overlooking everything.

[Oberon]

The trust issue is an odd one too, not trustworthy enough to be in a team but enough to be in the one day set-up.

The more I read the more I believe this is entirely personal.

I don't have high hopes of the Strauss regime, in fact the England set up is beginning to feel like the nineties, lots of talent, poorly led and under performing. I hope I'm wrong

[Alex]

The trust issue is an odd one too, not trustworthy enough to be in a team but enough to be in the one day set-up.

The more I read the more I believe this is entirely personal.

I don't have high hopes of the Strauss regime, in fact the England set up is beginning to feel like the nineties, lots of talent, poorly led and under performing. I hope I'm wrong

Maybe the role was offered in order to start the trust being built again?

I know it's probably not why, but it's certainly plausible.

[captainfog]

The latest Switch Hit podcast on espncricinfo is great. David Hops is on fire. And Jarrod Kimber absolutely destroys Strauss.

[Oberon]

Maybe the role was offered in order to start the trust being built again?

I know it's probably not why, but it's certainly plausible.

True but...... just strikes me as odd and not logical

[Chazza]

England door still open for Kevin Pietersen

Way back into the team relies on Alastair Cook either standing down or losing captaincy as Ian Bell says he had not witnessed breakdown in trust

The England and Wales Cricket Board’s reasons for barring Kevin Pietersen’s return to the national team were undermined yesterday when Ian Bell said he had not witnessed any breakdown in trust between the exiled batsman and his England team-mates. It also became clear that Alastair Cook, the captain, was the major obstacle to Pietersen’s return.

Bell, the first England player to comment on director of cricket Andrew Strauss' decision to blackball Pietersen on the grounds the ECB did not trust him, said Pietersen was the best batsman he had played with, and was right to feel "aggrieved" over his treatment.

Bell said there had had not seen any problems between Pietersen and other England players in the dressing room, and that he "did not know" whether there had been disputes "behind closed doors".

What has been going on behind closed doors is that it was Alastair Cook who barred Pietersen’s return by threatening to resign as England captain. Cook is understood to have told the ECB his position in the West Indies at which point the board’s stance on Pietersen shifted.

They then began speaking to candidates for the director of cricket job who were told, if not in direct language, that they would have to somehow manage the Pietersen issue because Cook will not have him in the team.
Cook can never forgive him for the criticisms in his book and the personal attacks on Twitter he received from Pietersen’s supporters last summer which reduced his wife Alice to tears.

When presented with the choice between the captain or Pietersen, the board chose what it felt would be the lesser of two public relations disasters. Choosing Pietersen over Cook would have toppled a captain, and many at the ECB believe it would be unfair to throw Joe Root into an Ashes summer as England skipper under such circumstances.
Cook held all the power in this issue even if his own captaincy will not last long if results are poor against New Zealand and Australia take an early stranglehold on the Ashes series.

Strauss said Cook had not been consulted on the Pietersen decision but the board felt it had to protect the England captain from involvement in such a sensitive issue given the history between the pair.

Cook will speak next week on the day before the first Test and is likely to deny any suggestion that he offered to resign but it is now clear he and Pietersen can never share a dressing room as captain and player. That would change if Cook stands down as captain and concentrates on playing because he would no longer have the power to veto a return for Pietersen.

Knowing that Cook may not be the England captain beyond the summer is why the ECB on Tuesday did not rule out a return for Pietersen one day.

Under a different captain, and the team probably in need of a player of Pietersen’s match-winning ability if they have to rebuild after an Ashes defeat, the possibility of his return this winter is possible if he remains committed to playing cricket beyond the Twenty20 circuit.

As Bell has hinted the other players have no problem with a return for Pietersen. James Anderson is no fan but is old and wise enough to stay out of the politics while Stuart Broad, the other player he criticised in his book, is struggling for form.
With his friend Eoin Morgan as one-day captain Pietersen could be back for the World Twenty20 in India next March.

Bell was vice-captain to Cook during the period in which Pietersen was removed from the England set-up, before being replaced by Root upon Strauss' appointment. Bell's comments follow those of Pietersen, who has said it was only Cook who was opposed to Pietersen's recall.

“Obviously there were certain things going on. I didn’t see it, I don’t think the players saw it in the dressing room,” said Bell. “Whether there were other things going on behind closed doors, I don’t know. To be completely honest, in the West Indies and throughout the winter there’s been no conversation in the dressing room about any of this stuff. The only time people see it is when they read about it.”

As Bell spoke, anger was growing among county executives about the governing body's handling of the Pietersen affair and the damage it had done to English cricket, with one insider even saying it had been a greater embarrassment than the association with the disgraced Texan fraudster Allen Stanford.

“This is a damn sight worse than Stanford. Then we got sucked into a Ponzi scheme. This is of our own making. The reputation of the ECB and its leading figures is so low I am not sure how they are going to get it back.”

Another county chief executive described the situation as “utterly shambolic” and added “it is not very helpful when we are trying to improve the game and move it forward”.

The ECB has been silent so far and not answered the accusations by Pietersen in his Telegraph Sport column that he has been a victim of “deceit” after he was told by Colin Graves, the new ECB chairman, that if he scored county runs he had “a clean slate”.

Graves will argue he gave no guarantees to Pietersen and told him the decision about his future would be made by the selectors. It was actually passed up the command chain when Strauss was appointed and once he decided Cook had to be backed over Pietersen, Graves had no choice but to go along with it and take the public criticism that has flowed his way in recent days.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/kevinpietersen/11606944/England-door-still-open-for-Kevin-Pietersen.html

[Shaggy]

Wow

**** off Cook.

[RichC]

It seems the ECB lurch from one PR disaster to the next. KP I am sure is far from blameless but the stuff that seems to have gone on is crazy.

[Alex]

I am pretty sure he will be back for the world T20 like the article mentions.

I feel a bit sorry for Strauss in all of this too. He has clearly been told the line with regards to the Pietersen fiasco and has to follow it. If he wanted the job he would have to deal with it.

The more I think about the offer of advisor, the more I think it was given to start getting him back into the fold. But it seems to have rightly been taken as a bit of a slap in the face.

Cook needs to go I think. He is bit of a lame captain. But with Root being put into the Vice Captain role, it seems that process might have already begun.

[RichC]

I don't feel for Strauss at all tbh the line with the KP fiasco he's followed for me is something hes also been involved in and if not andhe's had those sanctions put on him before joining it shows to me that he's probably not strong enough for the role he's been brought in to do.

England cricket has for far too long been run by the wrong people and I'm struggling to see Strauss as a change from the status quo; hopefully I'll be proved wrong on this.

The big knock on from all this though is who are we going to get in as coach ? You'd imagine a lot of the top names we'd like to bring in will be looking at this and thinking "no thanks"

[Alex]

The only thing Strauss has done to maintain status quo was the KP thing. He has had about 4 days in the job. Think people need to give him a bit of time first.

Just seems that you need to be either Pro or Against the KP thing without room in the middle.

I do share the sentiment about the coaches though. It seems pretty toxic at the moment, but so did Australia 2 years ago before Lehman.

[RichC]

And what a huge thing to have to follow the status quo with, I mean he's been ridiculed for his decision by most of his peers in the game for it. Cracking start

The KP situation has been handled dreadfully from start to finish, being told if he scores big runs he's going to be considered and then after doing so being told he's not, completly messed around by the ECB and whilst it's not my concern probably cost him a fair bit of cash coming back to try and get his place back.

Australia were never in the mess we are at the moment

[Alex]

And what a huge thing to have to follow the status quo with, I mean he's been ridiculed for his decision by most of his peers in the game for it. Cracking start

The KP situation has been handled dreadfully from start to finish, being told if he scores big runs he's going to be considered and then after doing so being told he's not, completly messed around by the ECB and whilst it's not my concern probably cost him a fair bit of cash coming back to try and get his place back.

Australia were never in the mess we are at the moment

Really? Picking one player is hardly an earth shattering problem. No matter how good he is (Ignoring all the others in the side and their form, but he has hardly been outstanding these last 18 months since he was dropped)

I just think its drawn such a line for most that its almost become impossible to move past it onto other things. I think Strauss tried and failed to draw a line under it and move on.

Id much prefer to talk about Root being Vice Captain. Or Adam Lyth and Mark Wood being in the test squad. Or the fact he was to keep the Test and ODI sides totally separate. All good moves. All overshadowed by KP.