Credit where credit’s due. The ECB have gone a long way towards redeeming themselves over their handling of KP-gate.
If you’ve visited this blog before, you may have noticed that I – from my perspective as an English cricket supporter – was moved to apoplexy by the ECB’s handling of events.
They acted with bias, prejudice and heavy-handedness. They put their own pride and ego before any other concerns. They allowed a dressing room to fracture and then punished only one of the guilty parties.
To a great extent, Giles Clarke and Hugh Morris – respectively, the ECB chairman and England team boss – have managed to put matters right, and more quickly than anyone expected. A deal has been struck with Pietersen which, seemingly to everyone’s satisfaction, now clears his way to rejoin the national side.
Clarke and Morris recognised that matters had got out of hand. They also acknowledged that removing Pietersen from the international scene was a ridiculous price to pay for the alleged misdemeanours.
The duo should not take all the credit. Alastair Cook may have been involved in some way. And KP himself agreed to all their conditions: his attitude during negotiations appears hard to reproach.
We will now never know the content of those infamous text messages. KP did not retain them, yesterday’s official statements say, but it also transpires that in any case they weren’t texts, but BlackBerry chat messages, which aren’t saved on the handset.
The ECB have accepted Pietersen’s word that he never traduced Andrew Strauss nor the team management. And there the matter must now rest.
KP’s many enemies in the media rejoiced at the allegations that he had also texted tactical information to the South African dressing room. Speaking about them on Test Match Special, Derek Pringle almost wet his pants in glee.
Sadly for him and his ilk, there was never a shred of evidence that Pietersen had done any such thing. The ECB yesterday accepted this.
We don’t know what else has happened behind the scenes, but it would be interesting to know whether any of the top brass have spoken to Stuart Broad, Graeme Swann and James Anderson.
The charges against the trio were only rumours, but that was equally true of the majority of accusations aimed at Pietersen. It is difficult to believe that they have nothing to say sorry for, or nothing about their behaviour they should remedy for the future.
If you’ve read previous discussions about this story on The Full Toss, you’ll have noticed that we never cast Pietersen as the blameless victim. He’s no angel – in fact, he’s acted foolishly and often selfishly. Heaven knows whether he now realises this. I hope so.
All through the saga, I’ve argued that only one thing matters – the interests of English cricket supporters. Not the ECB’s ego, or Pietersen’s well-being, nor whether a few handsomely paid professional cricketers have been miffed by some text messages.
What was actually important was that those who put their heart, soul and cash into following the team – in other words, us – are entitled to see our best possible XI take the field, uncompromised by politics, hissy fits or mis-management.
My sense is that supporters were divided 50/50 on this one – half backing KP, half against him. By backing him, I mean took the view that his punishment was excessive and he should be restored to the side. As well as those of us who took that position, Pietersen found support elsewhere, in some ranks of ex-players and the commentariat.
Many of us stuck out our necks for KP, and extended to him the loyalty he deserves as a brilliant cricketer who always tries his damnedest on the field of play. We showed faith. It is now time for Pietersen to repay it.
Maxie Allen
I wouldn’t go as far as Maxie actually. I thought yesterday’s press conderence was a little strained. I also wanted to punch Giles Clarke in the face throughout most of it ;-) KP might be a difficult character sometimes, but I totally understand why someone like him would dislike and resent a pompous dinosaur like Clarke.
In the press conference, Clarke’s line of argument was quite laughable. He acted like a politician, saying that ‘all people in our society who misbehave have a right to rehabilitate themselves and be reintegrated into society’ (or words to that effect). Why is he trying to sound like a Home Secretary speaking about convicted criminals? Has KP comitted a crime? Is he an armed robber or someone guilty of GBH who is a danger to society. I mean come on. For heavens sake.
Once again the ECB tried to position themselves as the arbiters of what’s right and wrong – even though they were the ones who tried to insert clauses into KP’s contract ensuring they couldn’t be sued. When are they going to realise that they aren’t actually very important people at all. They are just officials and administrators who run a game. They take themselves far too seriously and are full of their own self-importance.
People like Clarke’s high and mighty attitude does English cricket no good at all. They fail to accept any blame for the saga themselves, and their prime concern seems to be presentation i.e. to come across as through they’ve ‘won’. At a time when people are supposed to be working together for the sake of the English cricket team, and ‘moving forward positively’ as KP might say, I thought the content and tone of Clarke’s words were actually quite ‘provocative’. I certainly wouldn’t want to work for him.
I think it’s fair to say that outside the bubble of the ECB people like Giles Clarke don’t really exist in the real world. It fascinates me that organisations like the ECB persist with this old boy mentality and then wonder why we struggle to achieve our full potential on the world stage.
They spend so much time, energy and money, the majority of which comes from genuine cricket fans paying through the nose for tickets, on trying to beat Australia every other year that we don’t seem to have any strategy to tackle anyone or anything else. I imagine if is were an ashes year then the Kevin issue would have been put to bed and he would have been back in an England shirt some time ago.
It’s a credit to Andy Flower And Andrew Strauss that they managed to achieve so much for so long with the level of buffoonery demonstrated by their executive colleagues to constantly hinder their progress and take credit for their work.
Long term I have little faith that this method of non strategy will lead to anything other than poor performances, England teams that flatter to deceive and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
The one thing I look forward to in years to come (other than Ravi Bopara’s 14th come-back and the selectors continuing to look at every keeper/batsman in the country other than Matt Prior) is Andy Flowers memoirs which will hopefully explain to me and everyone else how he managed to stop himself from committing bufoonicide at every committee meeting!
Now please behave Kevin, it’s all got very old now, put it away for good.