It is fascinating to watch from afar the turmoil and anguish currently suffusing English cricket over the curious question of Kevin Pietersen.
To see the proud, ancient cricketing nation torn apart by the controversy arouses powerful emotions in the observer’s breast, emotions that for this Australian cricket lover can be best summed up as: Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
But the joy of seeing English cricket in distress aside, the Pietersen affair does raise serious questions about the balance a team must strike between individual ability and collective unity.
That KP is enormously talented is not in question: in fact I can probably pay him no greater compliment than to say that in all my years of watching cricket, there’s not been a single batsman whose dismissal brought me greater pleasure. Australian teams have been tormented by mighty batsmen in that time, from Laxman to Lara, but seeing Pietersen trudge off brought an almost sacred euphoria to bear upon the mood, as if the light of God were shining on us in that moment of beauty.
However, the fact seeing him get out has always been so enjoyable probably hints at the problem: Pietersen is kind of…I’m not sure there’s a delicate way to put it on a family website such as this. Let’s just say that if he were a character in The Karate Kid, he’d sweep the leg without even being told to. There are entire musical genres based entirely on people who had to go to high school with people like Kevin Pietersen. He’s the kind of guy who reads Shane Warne’s Twitter feed and still wants to hang out with him.
So you can see why there might be some who balk at the idea of playing cricket alongside him. Mind you, England spent a decade not being all that fussed about it, which suggests one of two things: either Pietersen, once you get to know him, is a kind, generous, loveable, Hugh Jackman-ish sort of chap; or professional sports teams don’t care much how big a tosser you are as long as your numbers look good.
The evidence for the latter proposition is fairly strong – for example, Paul Gallen. And it’s not as if KP would’ve been the only tool in the box – just the biggest, with the stupidest hair. Anyone who wants to play cricket for their country has to put up with close proximity to men who, outside the flannelled realm, they wouldn’t swerve to miss. But our Kevin seems to have pushed things just that little bit further, to the point where his teammates were swerving at him.
The loss in the last Ashes series cannot have helped. Pietersen was, of course, his team’s highest runscorer in that series. But in a summer of horrific collapses triggered by Australia’s most terrifying moustache, his figures still weren’t all that imposing. Moreover, there was a sense that while the rest of the batting order were bunnies frozen in headlights, Pietersen was the bunny who escaped the headlights but got run over later that night after falling asleep in a driveway: others were overwhelmed, but KP built his own destruction out of carelessness and arrogance.
Still, it would seem a team is better served by a man who gets out for fifty attempting the impossible or moronic, than by one who gets out for five attempting to find his mum. But as things tend to be when there’s an opinion column to be written, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
What it came down to is trust. New cricket director Andrew Strauss just cannot trust Pietersen not to do something counterproductive, like calling Strauss a prick. As a seasoned campaigner, Strauss knows how damaging to morale it can be when people call him a prick: his own morale always plummets when that happens. And England has a consistent record of winning more Tests when nobody in the team is calling Andrew Strauss a prick. The 1956 Ashes is a good example of this.
But surely a compromise can be reached? Maybe Strauss and Pietersen could strike a deal where Pietersen gets to text slurs about Strauss to South Africans once a week, if Strauss gets to distribute unflattering nude drawings of Pietersen to the entire XI before every game. Or maybe Pietersen gets to kick Strauss in the crotch on his birthday, but for every hundred runs Pietersen scores Strauss gets to stick a needle into his skull.
I’ll let them figure out the details, but there has to be some way to get this gentle, obnoxious soul back where he belongs: on the international stage.
But on the other hand, screw him.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
But he did write that AFTER being kicked out of the team and having a lot of stuff said publicly against him, and in effect he was just putting his side of the story, trying to let people know that actually, he wasn't the big bad guy in this whole thing that he was made out to be. I was never a fan of KP, but over the last couple of years with all that has come out, I must admit that I've started to fall very much on his side in the KP v Strauss, Cook, Anderson, Broad, Swann, Prior etc battle.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Agreed. In fact, since all these drama's starting coming to the public's attention a couple of years ago, KP has seemed more and more the likeable one and all those other guys mentioned less and less so. Ian Bell might be the exception from that list. He seems to have tried to play Switzerland in the whole thing. In fact, most of the things I've heard him say suggest to me that he's a player who actually thinks KP is in the right on much of this, but has to be very careful with what he says to avoid getting on the wrong side of the all those above and ending up on the outer himself. Could be completely wrong, but just a feeling I've got.
JimmyB
Guest
True Bakkies. Broad actually might be becoming the guy that Aussies have always painted him as (or at least since he didn't walk.)
JimmyB
Guest
Jake that Twitter account wasn't run by any of the players in the team, that's not to say that they didn't find it amusing though.
Sideline Comm.
Guest
It was a joke champ. I'd have him commentating because it would be funny hearing what he has to say about the England team, not because I want to give him a a consolation prize as Strauss was doing. How can I say he's a knob? Because of how he has acted; it's got nothing to do with the word of others. Messaging mates on an opposing team about your own team-mates: knob. Getting dropped and then releasing a book bagging out his team-mates and STILL saying he wants his spot back: knob. Getting told there is a lack of trust between him and the team and then letting loose on social media: knob. What would you call all that? You ask how I could say that: how can you not?
Zim Zam
Roar Rookie
Yeah, well said - KP burned his bridges.
Bakkies
Guest
Speaking of Broad he wrote himself the other day and couldn't attend a sponsor's promotion. Bell a KP supporter was the only player present. As far as I know Broad who was England's best and most productive bowler in the last two series has yet to be punished.
Bakkies
Guest
That 150 at The Oval that should have been finished off earlier had Warne held on that catch knocked the stuffing out of the boys. Too many errors made were made in that Series which England punished including McGrath bowling Vaughan twice off consecutive no balls earlier on. Vaughan went on to score a big hundred.
Tom from Perth
Guest
Good stuff Ben.
Paul
Guest
Hilarious writing style, I love it! Esp "attempting to find their mums" haha! I Think people who debate about KP forget they key factor. He wrote a tell all book rubbishing the National set up. That would get you out of any team in the world.
GPR
Guest
Whilst I never really liked him, he still seems a lot more likeable than Jimmy Anderson, Graeme Swann, Alastair Cook, Stuart Broad, Matt Prior, Ian Bell and even Strauss himself.
Hazey the Bear
Roar Rookie
"That's the price of genius, you muppet!" Aaah, the joys.
Targa
Guest
Three actually - Stokes, Ballance and Jordan
Mitcher
Guest
Naw, Richie Rich! Diddums. I guess sometimes satire is hard to swallow.
Bee bee
Guest
Frozen bunnies. That is awesome. I read that to my wife and she laughed. And she hates cricket. Thanks Ben
Rich_UK
Guest
as original as stuffing a ‘national’ team with mercenaries from anywhere they can be found? oh sorry, that’s just pathetic isn’t it? Stuffing??? Looking at the England team to play NZ I think two were born outside of England....is that really 'stuffed' with foreign mercenaries???? There's a certain spinner from Oz that has spent most of his life overseas
brian drian
Guest
as original as stuffing a 'national' team with mercenaries from anywhere they can be found? oh sorry, that's just pathetic isn't it?
twodogs
Guest
Not a knob sideline. Just a superior cricketer to the others. He knows it, they know it. How can you say he's a knob? On the word of others? You want to ban him from international cricket but yet have him in the commentary box? You sound like Strauss who won't have him in the team but then offers an advisory role!
Zim Zam
Roar Rookie
I have to say, the whole article sums up my feelings on KP and the ECB perfectly. "... in all my years of watching cricket, there’s not been a single batsman whose dismissal brought me greater pleasure ... seeing Pietersen trudge off brought an almost sacred euphoria to bear upon the mood, as if the light of God were shining on us in that moment of beauty." Gave me fond flashbacks of the lounge room roof lifting off when Sidds got him out in Perth last Ashes...
Zim Zam
Roar Rookie
Haha, made my day! The hair comment is so perfectly timed ... "I thought I was going to see Kevin Pietersen flogging Johnson and Siddle and co all over the ground, and instead all I've got is Alastair Cook grinding his way to a dreary 15!"