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It may surprise you to learn that Kevin Pietersen is not actually evil. He may even want England to win some matches. People can at times forget that real life isn’t actually a drama scripted by halfwits. The characters involved aren’t ‘good’ or ‘evil’.
Kevin Pietersen polarises people, or at least his caricature does. It’s all about the ego. He may have an ego, but that can be all that’s presented at times; a one-note depiction of the man (see below).
Pietersen will have added to his reputation last week. The simplest and therefore most enduring representation of what’s gone on depicts a man giving an ultimatum to his employers via the newspapers – even though that’s not necessarily the true story.
Pietersen is no longer captain primarily because the players failed to support him. They failed to support him because they didn’t like the way he’d conducted proceedings through the press. Did he do this?
He says not and there are veiled references to a source described as ‘a player who is a friend of Pietersen, although not a key member of the England team’ or ‘an ex-colleague’ who was apparently leaking the information.
Pietersen wanted shot of Moores and set about trying to achieve this by speaking to his employers. He did this because he thought it was the right thing to do, not in some cartoonish quest for power.
Don’t get us wrong. Kevin Pietersen is a bit of a tool. Several of his team mates don’t much like him, but players don’t have to like their captain.
What are your thoughts? We’re not a mainstream media outlet, so the greyer and more middle-ground they are, the better.
Update: After we’d written this, we read this article. It explains our position better that we ever could – by being exactly wrong about absolutely everything. It might just be the worst piece of journalism we’ve ever encountered.
It’s hateful and bigoted, with the entire piece based on prejudice built on assumption built on prejudice built on assumption. What facts appear (and there are incredibly few) are misrepresented and embellished.
We’ll go further and say that it’s everything that’s wrong with humanity: more information is being expelled by the writer than has been taken in beforehand. The shortfall is made up with knee-jerk loathing and assumption of the worst in a person.
My thoughts on the Mail piece probably shouldn’t be put into words. I read on until the end, expecting there to be something on him being an illegal immigrant and ship him back to where he came from, but was surprised they showed such restraint coming from the rag it did.
My own views; KP is a bit of an arse but someone screwed him over. Like him, if his story is correct, I’m not quite sure what he did was a sackable offense and rather the ECB are the real guilty party. After all, if what he did was worthy of dismissal, how was their involvement any better? I’m certainly no Moores fan and glad he’s gone, althought not necessarily in the way it has transpired, but will be interested in his story.
Well, if you will read the Daily Mail….
They failed to support him because they didn’t like the way he’d conducted proceedings through the press.
I think they probably failed to support him because Hugh Morris phoned them up and said “Are you supporting KP and by the way have you remembered that you haven’t signed your central contract yet?”
“Mail are bunch of cúnts” shocker.
This might turn out well for English cricket in the long run. We have already seen that Pietersen wasn’t perfect in the job this time around, demanding too much too quickly
But he did show signs of good leadership: dropping Harmison in India when he was underperforming and leading the team back ther in the first place.
If he learns from this experience, maybe if he is appointed captain again he’ll be less of ‘an arse’ next time around. Too much to hope for?
Des Kelly has always been a twat.
His appearances on Inside Sport are characterised by similar ignorant, arrogant and small-minded opinions, while he comes across as a self-congratulatory cunt on Fighting Talk.
He also lived with Carole Vorderman for many years. That is not relevant unless you believe that someone who sells detox diets and loan shark services is exactly the sort of person who is attracted and/or attractive to fucktards.
Have just watched the interview on Sky with Kay Thing – where he was so hurt and shocked and horrified, and had had his childhood dream broken… erm …really your childhood dream KP.???…. which sort of negated everything else for me quite unfairly.
I still hold to my view that it’s just that he isn’t bright enough to captain England – he should just be’ in Bumble’s words’ “the star player” . KP’s utterances are on a level with the blessed Haydoes – a collection of words desperately seeking sense.
The only good thing about that article of mail bile was the splendid Ronaldo joke after it
As an Australian fan I think it is good news for England. Pietersen is too brilliant a player for him to worry about captain. Like Botham, Pietersen will be a much better player without the captaincy.
I think a large part of the issue is that everyone involved in the process insists on thinking of KP as ‘The South African’ which immediately renders everything he does suspicious. Whether compliment (e.g. by attributing his positive playing nature to the fact that he isn’t English), or censure (e.g. he is not committed to playing for England due to his origins) everything about KP seems to be seen through the magnifying-glass of his outsider status. It is a warped way of looking at the man that I think is unfair and has clearly contributed to this whole pathetic set of circumstances.
I think this is exemplified when the ECB, after “accepting KP’s resignation” (which KP says was in actual fact a sacking not a resignation) they then immediately asked him about his future availability for England, the clear implication being that the ECB expected him to flounce off back to South Africa (or the IPL). KP (later revealing he felt threatened by the implication) reiterated (not for the first time I imagine ) that he is commited to England.
[Source: Cricinfo article “Pietersen says he was forced to quit”].
I wonder how many times until he retires he will need to keep making this affirmation?
@jonah – i think you hit the nail in the head. ECB echelon know that they hold the trump against KP. his only option apart from england is the IPL. gaining eligibility in RSA is out of question and enough bridges have been burned there that the saffers will keep KP off just out of spite. and the way KP’s numbers are trending, he has a real shot at gaining superstar status in the history books. so he can’t really quit test cricket either. so it was a fine way of making KP realise that the ECB has him by the balls. and remind him that he is not english.
Daisy and I have a real difference of opinion over this.
She believes the ECB to be a bunch of post-colonial asreholes who couldn’t manage a coffee stall, therefore KP is the innocent party.
I wouldn’t like to comment on the ability (or otherwise) of the ECB in the coffee stall department, but certainly feel that KP lacks the brains and the political savvy to transform English cricket in a hurry.
I have no doubt that KPs motives were decent – i.e. he was doing what he thought was best for the England team. I also have no doubt that his self-confidence (or call it ego if you will) inflated his own opinion of his ability to achieve his objectives in the circumstances.
Great player and could turn out to be one of the all-time greats. Not a great leader and might not get a chance to prove that point again. Let’s hope he can concentrate on that “all time great” player target now.
Oh, and at least he has been consistently using the phrase “100%” rather than the commitment inflation we have discussed elsewhere.
I think KP will get another shot as England captain. I’ve backed him from the start and to me he seems a pretty honest bloke. I thought he was doing a decent job as captian, on and off the field but unfortuantly cricket politcs, media and the ECB all compiled into one big switch hit and sent KP over the rope.
But for now, I’m happy with Strauss, he’s got da know how.
I don’t care for his brashness but it makes him successful as a sportsman, and the England team needs that. I think he is an honest bloke, but seems rather naïve.
Kevin Pietersen the rather excellent cricketer is one thing….but his personal pr machine and attached ego are a problem! He has got to grow up and get real – and get his sponsorship product endorsing extra cash sideline as secondary to his profile as an England cricketer. At the moment he is playing it to his personal public profile and not for the England team. That team has to come first.
It’s difficult to know who fucked what up as there is so much made up media conjecture written as fact KP is always going to look bad, and not helped by coming out and saying it ‘like it is’ in his News of the World column. Talk about reinforcing any negativity?
As an on field Captain he is a long way off, as a diplomat and media spinner – he ain’t there yet either. In the many moons its going to take him to get there I hope someone much more capable appears from the shadows!
Des cunt Kelly does what he does in the Mail which is what one comes to accept from a disreputable rag but one shouldn’t ignore what the so called decent newspapers are up to. Rachel Cooke in Observer did a fantastic front bottom fart yesterday with her squint-eyed insight in to her own soul. Nobody other than close to him knows what sort of a pewrson KP is but that is what this episode is about. He was asked to provide a strategy for 2009 and wrote down what he thought was good for English cricket. I don’t see anything to with his ego here. A decent captain wanting to do the best should say what he beleives in. And remember this was not done after some minor issue but after much discussions with ECB and some of the players. The real egotists are the suits who didn’t want KP to ‘dictate’ to them but would rather have ‘players’ dictate to them after the Morris’ pathetic phone the friends round. There is plenty for us to think about the whole affair but KP’s ego is least of our problem. let alone his country of origin. Shame on all the one-eyed monkeys.
front bottom fart
The Daily Fail strikes again!