The headline on The Independent’s website couldn’t have been any more effectively written if the motive was to provide clickbait only.
‘Darren Lehmann tears into Kevin Pietersen after disappointing BBL performance‘.
Well – guilty as charged your honour – it had me clicking the link in a quiet five minutes at lunchtime when in search of something interesting to read.
My word, I thought at first glance, what has the Australian coach had to offer here?
And just what has the Melbourne Stars’ marquee player done this time, no stranger to provocative headlines he?
As it turned out, unless I’ve missed a trick, not really a great deal and not really a great deal.
Lehmann’s ‘tearing’ into Pietersen was to say that the Stars might be better off looking elsewhere for a top order man and that he’s had enough of the latter’s excuses.
Pietersen, to induce such wrath, had the audacity to suggest a few of his colleagues might have been better served playing in the Big Bash semi-final at the WACA rather than ordering room service ahead of Australia’s ODI encounter with Pakistan in Adelaide later in the week.
On the first point, if that really is Lehmann getting stuck into someone, then his dressing room bollockings must be pretty lame.
And if that is Pietersen reeling off the excuses, then that particular game isn’t worth bothering with.
It might be your opinion that the national coach shouldn’t really be taking to the social media airwaves to sound off, or that Pietersen has no place questioning the motives of the criticiser when he is a guest of that country’s flagship competition.
On the flip side, you may opine that Lehmann has every right defending how he manages his charges and Pietersen can say what he likes given that it is his side that has had to take a hit.
There’s every chance you may fall a bit into both camps, neither condoning or condemning either of them and thinking this is somebody attempting to create a mountain out of an issue that doesn’t even deserve to be classified as a molehill.
And as this is a double-edged sword, so to speak, you would probably be about right.
It is a debate more than a few years old about whether international players should appear more often for their respective states/counties/provinces/franchises and one that will never go away.
‘Why isn’t Player A playing for X? There isn’t an international game for however many days so he should be here.’
Add to the melting pot a big tournament or relatively important encounter and the ire will only be raised a notch.
Understandable, as who doesn’t want to see the best cricketers in their domestic colours, on a more intimate stage than the international game can provide?
A rhetorical question, of course, as the issue, as most are, is rarely as simple and straightforward as that.
Such are the schedules, it is a minor miracle if an international player gets a bit of domestic duty in. After all, with a few days grace between matches, would they want to turn out?
There is a bigger picture, i.e. deserved promotions and attempting to inspire future generations, yet the fixture list has become bloated to such an extent it is nigh on impossible to satisfy all parties.
Pietersen, had he the boot been on the other foot, may not have been overly keen to drop down a level and had Lehmann been a state coach it would probably be a safe bet to think he might have been cussing the absence of a few.
The perspective is altered depending on where you are sitting, just as it is with any issue which pits club against country.
Whether Pietersen is worthy of another year with the Stars is not the point. Was it a bit of personal animosity reaching the surface which perhaps which wasn’t necessary?
The international game, especially in cricket where it effectively keeps the sport alive as a professional entity, rules the roost.
Until it is usurped by the franchise model – which might never happen – that won’t change.
So as for Lehmann versus Pietersen, neither of them are wrong. It’s just that, in the current climate, only one of them is going to be right.
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