Personality vs performance: would you have dropped Pietersen?
Roar Pro By Dixie, 16 Aug 2012 Dixie is a Roar Pro
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- Cricket, England cricket, Kevin Pietersen, Test cricket
England's Kevin Pietersen runs to the Balmy Army on the hill in celebration after making his double century on the third day of the second Ashes test at the Adelaide Oval, Sydney, Sunday, Dec. 5, 2010.(AAP Image/Dean Lewins)
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Despite the forced retractions and half-hearted mea culpa, it seems Kevin Pietersen has played his last game for England, after he was dropped from the Test side before the series decider against South Africa.
Not even a fluffy YouTube video or a century in the second Test could save KP, following allegations he sent text messages during play to his Proteas opponents, with particularly disparaging content about England captain Andrew Strauss.
Pietersen has never been regarded as a team player. With a vain, arrogant, swaggering external persona, the 32 year-old has a history of crying poor when things didn’t go his way.
Despite his undoubted star quality, throughout his first-class career Pietersen has almost always managed to polarise the dressing room by putting his own needs ahead of the team. On leaving Natal he overlooked his own poor stats and blamed a (admittedly faulty) quota system for a lack of opportunities.
At Notts, captain Jason Gallian threw KP’s gear off the dressing room balcony in response to some on-field banter between the two.
Pietersen is again in the wrong here. He signed a centralised contract with the ECB and then wanted to play when it suited him, threatening to retire if his employer didn’t play ball.
He bluffed. The ECB called.
But the fact remains, England need to win the third Test at Lord’s to retain top spot on the ICC Test rankings. Pietersen is (with Trott) their best player, and his 149 in the last Test showed he’s in great touch. There’s no ready-made replacement. On paper, the side will suffer.
The selectors have drawn a line in the sand – they believe Pietersen’s negative impact on the dressing room would have outweighed the runs he would contribute.
It’s a weird one because the player is in form. It’s common knowledge Shane Warne didn’t see eye-to-eye with Steve Waugh or Adam Gilchrist, but he remained an integral part of the team on their record winning streak.
Nicolas Anelka continued to be signed by football clubs with big plans and bigger chequebooks, despite a reputation for selfishness and causing disharmony.
It seems the days of a skipper dressing down an out-of-line player may be over
Personally I like the stance the ECB have taken, but the players now need to back it up at Lord’s.
What would you have done with KP?
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- Cricket, England cricket, Kevin Pietersen, Test cricket
August 16th 2012 @ 2:50am
Johnno said | August 16th 2012 @ 2:50am | Report comment
Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis cused a lot of disharmony duirng the 90′s in the Pakistan team, as did Mohin khan and Rashid Latif.
Rivalries can cause problems in a team and destabilise teams.
Brian Lara caused a lot of problems when he was captain as well.
August 17th 2012 @ 12:26am
AndyMack said | August 17th 2012 @ 12:26am | Report comment
Not sure why Rashid Latif’s name is brought up here. He was outspoken against match fixing within the Pakistan team. Perhaps if more people took him seriously the game would be in a better position today (as would a certain young pakistani left arm quickie…)
August 16th 2012 @ 8:55am
sheek said | August 16th 2012 @ 8:55am | Report comment
Absolutely.
Cricket is a team game. And a great team is where the sum of the total is greater than the sum of the parts.
No matter how great a player is, if they refuse to be part of the team, then their place in the team will eventually have a toxic effect on team mates & ultimate team output, no matter how good they are.
I say good riddance to Kevin Pietersen…..
August 16th 2012 @ 10:10am
Bayman said | August 16th 2012 @ 10:10am | Report comment
This is about sending a message. Pietersen has obviously sent his, to the South Africans as it turns out, and now the ECB have sent theirs – to Kevin Pietersen and to every other England player who may feel inclined to swim upstream.
The ECB had a simple choice to make, really. They absolutely had to act as they did. Had cricket still been the amateur game of the pre-Kerry Packer days then nobody would have questioned the ECB decision. Indeed, it would have been expected and applauded.
Today, in the professional game, with money at stake and ranking points to win or lose, there seems to be a view from some that the match result is ultimately more important than the end result. I’m glad the ECB have taken the longer view.
Guys like KP are great for fans to watch but a pain in the backside for captains and team management. He seems to be one of those players who takes the view that he’s so good, so necessary that he should be able to do and say what he likes and people should just tolerate it and accept it.
It would have been bad enough had he texted selected fellow England players of his views but to text the opposition, especially given he himself is a South African, suggests that he has seriously fallen off the “same page” that his England team are on. It also suggests he has more friends in the opposition shed than his own.
He had to go and, frankly, if he ever gets back it will be an indictment of the ECB. Far better to lose a battle and win the war than the other way round.
August 16th 2012 @ 10:32am
Dixie said | August 16th 2012 @ 10:32am | Report comment
Good call. The other side of the coin is the mates mentality it now creates, as in the Brumbies late 2000′s where player power rules and if you’re not one of the boys, we won’t have you. Pietersen the extreme end of the scale, and I agree with sending the message by dropping him.
Pakistan have often had the players to win matches, but the in-fighting and dysfunction has always cost them, a good example.
Test starts tonight, an England win and KP who?
August 16th 2012 @ 10:40am
Aaron said | August 16th 2012 @ 10:40am | Report comment
we might have a sniff at the urn next year if he moves back to south africa…
August 16th 2012 @ 11:45am
k77sujith said | August 16th 2012 @ 11:45am | Report comment
A great talent but the problem lies in his head. I think the ECB has made the right decision…no one can be bigger than the game. Thanks.
August 16th 2012 @ 12:52pm
Atawhai Drive said | August 16th 2012 @ 12:52pm | Report comment
Kevin Pietersen isn’t the first professional sportsman to be trapped in perpetual adolescence, nor will he be the last.
But as even the most immature teenager learns, eventually, that there comes a time when the adult world has had enough.
Pietersen might learn a valuable lesson here, although I wouldn’t bet on it.
August 16th 2012 @ 1:46pm
Dixie said | August 16th 2012 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
It’s a double-edge sword: we latch onto any athlete who breaks the media trained mould, before their inevitable implusion where we can’t jump off fast enough. Willie Mason comes straight to mind, but then there’s Mario Balotelli who still gets away with it because he’s that good.
I predict it’s the end of Pietersen’s England days, which leaves chasing the summer T20 cash in South Africa, IPL, our Big Bash and the County stuff. He’ll be fine.
August 16th 2012 @ 1:15pm
Kev said | August 16th 2012 @ 1:15pm | Report comment
In sports, being a superstar loudmouth is like walking a tightrope in that you are afforded the freedom to shoot off your mouth provided your performances are there to match it and as this Pietersen situation shows even being a brilliant batsman allows only you much room to say and do whatever you want.
Pietersen allegedly sledging teammates isn’t anything new because as long as you have team sports you will always have personality and ego clashes. The issue is that he wanted to be given the luxury of picking and choosing when he played for England and that’s where the ECB have rightly come down on this like a tonne of bricks. Not doing so sets a dangerous precedent.
If Pietersen or any player in any country qualifies to play to for their national side then their national side takes priority. Anything else fits around that. Asking to be excused from playing tests, ODI’s or T20′s so that one can play in the IPL should be met with one response that being, if you are selected you must play no ifs no buts. If you want to skip any tests then you must quit that form of the game and even if you have a change of heart, your place in the side is not guaranteed if choose to play tests again.
It may result in some players choosing IPL over playing for their country but to me that’s an adequate price to pay given the alternative is a potentially farcical situation where your test side’s best players are off in India playing IPL because the test series is won and only dead rubber matches are left. Frankly if you are choosing IPL over your country I wouldn’t want you playing test matches anyway.
August 16th 2012 @ 1:51pm
Dixie said | August 16th 2012 @ 1:51pm | Report comment
Absolutely agree. Beneath the text stuff this stuff about scheduling has been underplayed. He signed a central contract, yet didn’t want to adhere to it. He threatened Test retirement, but couldn’t backtrack fast enough when his international career was under threat.
Gayle and some NZ players have gone the IPL path, good luck to them. Australia has suffered recently due to the massive workload of IPL contracted players, think it will come to a head in the next few years.
August 16th 2012 @ 1:21pm
Pope Paul VII said | August 16th 2012 @ 1:21pm | Report comment
Yes they did the right thing. This shouldn’t be the end for Pietersen though, if he’s man enough to apologise. However he may just take his bat and ball and play boring/boring for the extra dough. It’s up to him what sort of legacy he wan’t to leave on the game.
Boycott was another who put himself ahead of the team, in and out of it.
August 16th 2012 @ 2:39pm
Christo the Daddyo said | August 16th 2012 @ 2:39pm | Report comment
Absolutely the ECB did the only thing they could have.
As others have stated, the texting is one thing – which speaks to a lack of discipline and respect within the team – but the far more serious thing was the desire to pick and choose what tours he went on. This shows a complete disregard for the entire structure of international cricket. You either agree to make yourself available for ALL international commitments, or you miss out completely.
Bye bye Kevvie – friendless apart from his ego.
August 16th 2012 @ 5:35pm
Jason Cave said | August 16th 2012 @ 5:35pm | Report comment
Are the cracks starting to show in the England side? Especially seeing not only are they 1-0 down in the series against South Africa, but also they might lose the no.1 Test ranking. And there is the small matter of the 2013 Ashes series both in England and in Australia in 2013-14.
August 19th 2012 @ 6:43pm
Rory said | August 19th 2012 @ 6:43pm | Report comment
Jason, SA are a different prospect to the current aus team. I don’t think that there will be much concern about the upcoming ashes series in the England dressing room, respect for the Australian side but everyone knows that England have their number, irrelevant of the format.
That said, SA are looking like the better side and are probably deserving of the number 1 tag