Secrets and lies

SecretsAndLies

It’s now only three weeks until Kevin Pietersen’s book is published. Across the crickosphere the air hums with the sound of knives being sharpened, loins being girt, hatches being battened down. It is the eve of the war. This won’t be pretty.

During the next month or so, we will hear claims and counter claims, perceptions aplenty, and just maybe, some specific and genuine information which sheds light on the ugliest chapter in English cricket history since the rebel tours.

On one level this is a story about the reputation of a hugely controversial individual – what he did or didn’t do – and how management acted towards him.

But what it’s really about is transparency and truth. As cricket followers, what do we actually know, as opposed to presume. What counts as facts? Where does our knowledge come from? And what can we trust?

In all of the Pietersen saga, very little of what we think we know has come from the horses’ mouths. The ECB have disclosed almost nothing in official statements. As a case in point, after the captaincy debacle in January 2009, Hugh Morris declined to take any questions at the press conference. Pietersen himself has divulged only a fraction of his side of the story.

In return for the money and emotion we invest in the game, we are largely kept in the dark about what happens behind the scenes. The rationale behind decisions with far-reaching consequences are obscured behind a veil of secrecy and thicket of innuendo.

Sources are unidentified. Claims are unattributed. The reputations of key antagonists rest on judgements formed by hearsay and rumour. Those of us outside cricket must play detective and join the dots.

The definition of a fact – the context of why and how information is disclosed – was the overlooked subtext of my disagreement with Jonathan Agnew last week.

Put simply, how do the details of ECB machinations reach the public domain?

John Etheridge, the Sun’s cricket correspondent, wrote on our comments board last month that:

“The notion that there has been some vast leaking operation by the ECB is entirely false. I have covered cricket for 30 years and can’t remember anybody from the ECB (or TCCB as it was) ever ‘phoning me with a leak or any sort of inside information. Quite the opposite, they are usually extremely evasive.

“It is true that the ECB from time to time (maybe twice a year) organise dinners with the media and either the coaching or admin staff. Or both. These are social, get-to-know-you occasions with no agenda to brief against Pietersen or anybody else.

“Stories can come from any source – an agent, a player, a county team-mate, a spectator, an umpire, a dressing-room attendant, an ECB employee, anybody, really. Journalists speak to people all the time. On checking, many prove to be false. Some turn out to be true”. 

If the ECB do not overtly brief journalists, what is the conduit by which a story transports itself from inside to outside? They seem to seep out, anonymously. Intriguingly, though, many of the key Pietersen tales – for example the contract negotiations – could originally only have been known by a small number of very senior individuals.

How are we to tell what is an opinion, and what is fact? As any historian will tell you, the significance and substance of any information derives from the nature of its source. How does this person know the thing they’re telling you? What is their personal interest in the matter at hand? What’s at stake for them? Why do they want you to know?

I was drawn to these themes after reading a fascinating piece by Mike Selvey from October 2012 – which I’d missed at the time – thoughtfully posted by Arron Wright on our comments board the other day.

You might think it’s unsporting to dredge up a two year-old article, but so much of it is still very relevant today. Its theme, topical at the time, is the reasons for Pietersen’s fall-out with the ECB that summer, which culminated in text-gate, and the prospects for his ‘reintegration’.

“In May, Pietersen announced to Flower, without discussion or equivocation, that he had retired from one-day cricket but that he intended to continue playing Test matches and T20 internationals, although he wanted a say in which ones he actually did play in.

“It was pointed out to him that, under a clause in the contract he had signed – one inserted precisely to prevent the sort of situation that Pietersen was creating – he could not retire from one form of limited-overs cricket without doing so from the other”.

Given that Selvey was presumably not present at the meeting between Flower and Pietersen, and assuming that the Guardian man is neither a mind-reader nor planted a bug at the ECB offices, how did he know exactly what was said? Who told whom? And is this exactly what happened?

Of the relations between Pietersen and both his employers and team-mates, Selvey goes on to say:

“Such information is mostly pretty well documented, pieced together not from a leaky ECB as many would like to think (it is an incredibly anal organisation in this regard) but from responses to legitimate questions that anyone might be expected to ask.

“It was only during the past fortnight, though, that, as a result of a lengthy conversation with someone very closely connected to it all – neither an ECB employee or administrator it should be said – I discovered the true depth of the rancour created by Pietersen.

“During the 2011 season I was asked by Flower to present a cap to a debutant, and, to extrapolate from the address I gave the team, I reminded them that playing cricket for England was neither a meal ticket nor a sinecure, but a privilege. It seems prescient now.

“Unfortunately, it is the former that they detect in Pietersen’s motives. And it is how they see the motive behind his YouTube mea-a-bit-culpa U-turn. Pietersen, they believe, does not so much want to play for England as needs to, for his legacy in the game, which would come not from the Indian Premier League or international one-day cricket, but Test matches, for his profile and hence for his commercial interests – for Pietersen does nothing without a commercial imperative”.

So many questions are begged. What is the authority and status of the people to whom Selvey asked those “legitimate questions”? Is there any chance that here we have personal views, or gossip, presented as incontrovertible truth? What does Pietersen himself have to say about all this? If the “lengthy conversation” was not with an employee or administrator, what kind of role did that person have and what access did they have to the genuine facts? How impartial an observer were they? And what clues should we infer from the link between Flower and Selvey suggested by the cap ceremony?

What we need – and what we deserve – is more transparency. Whether the next few weeks will bring any at all remains to be seen.

Meanwhile – and as this has only just been published I’ve not yet had a chance to take a close look – Paul Newman interviews Alastair Cook in today’s Daily Mail. I’m sure you’ll have plenty to say about it.

123 comments

  • I can imagine the ECB would like to have KP’s book pulped before anyone gets a look at it.I believe they have said and done some terribly damaging things to KP.How they thought the truth would not come out would have to be sheer stupidity on their part.I for one happen to believe KP is an honest man and only his love of cricket and playing for England has kept him quiet .Believe Andy Flower was and still is the instigator of the destruction of KP’s career and is influencing ECB to keep the press destroying the man’s reputation.I sincerely hope KP puts AF right in it and I will believe every word he says.Don’t understand why AF seems to have so much power over those within the ECB .Also Moore’s and Cook.I just don’t understand.Perhaps KP’s book will blow it all open.I hope so because I don’t know another sportsman who has been vilified the way KP has.A decent honest young man who’s only guilt is his over enthusiastic love of cricket.

    • Think you have completely missed the point of the blog. You have no evidence that AF was the instigator of destruction for KP in a similar way that there is no evidence that KP called Strauss a doos. What we wish from the KP book is just transparency

      • There were a slew of reports in January that Flower have effectively given an ultimatum – it’s Pietersen or me. The evidence that Flower wanted P’sen out sees more than anecdotal in this instance. However, as you say, and as I argued above, it would nice to have all this from the horse’s mouth.

      • Let’s say,we shall see.If you don’t believe AF has been working against KP since 2005. Do some research!! Did KP call Strauss a doos, ? I’m sure he did and I’m sure Strauss deserved it.How much effort did he and AF make to stop the”KP Genius” when it got to be ” over the top “? None.The Captain and Coach did nothing when it was certainly their job to keep calm in the dressing room.If it had been anyone other than KP I’m sure they would have put an end to it much earlier.I sincerely hope KP’s book tells it all.There’s a lot to tell and HE won’t be lying.

        • I remember you actually, you were the same person who after reading my blog (http://voicefromstands.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/kevin-pietersen-2/) you claimed I was too immature to make an opinion due to my age. A lot more make sense now.

          Secondly, I’ve done some research as you’ve suggested and have established that AF did not have a grudge on KP since 2005 on the basis that AF was nowhere near the England set up at the time. And further research shows that AF is unlikely to have a grudge on the basis that he was influential in the “reintegration” process.

          Maybe, rather than a grudge, SHOCK HORROR, KP was actually disruptive?

          • Oops not 2005 meant 2009 (blame my old age) He and his mate Moore’s were totally in it !! Was he influential in the reintegration process?? Let’s wait and see when KP’s book comes out.I’m sure KP was disruptive.Wouldn’t you be if you were not appreciated when you knew you should have been.

            • You can have your own opinions.
              You can’t have your own facts.

              With the amount of verified public knowledge at the moment we can only give opinions but you seem to think otherwise

          • I didn’t say you were too immature to make an opinion, how would I know, I said the opinions you were mentioning at the time showed your immaturity.There is a difference .

  • 20 (twenty) first-person pronouns in his first eleven sentences.

    A real two fingers to those who regard him as terminally self-absorbed, eh?

    A self-absorption which, I believe, must have been reinforced by the fawning nature of the media coverage he *actually* received this summer. You will note that none of the major successes of the Test summer are mentioned by name, except Ballance. Not in reference to his deeds, but to something he said about the captain’s reception at Southampton. Yet “I” and “me” are prominent throughout.

    Also, it’s interesting how Newman has no hesitation in using a term you will be familiar with from your correspondence with Andrew Walpole:

    “It was during that third Test that the English cricketing public showed without doubt that they were still supporting their captain.”

    The one-day section is just as we’ve come to expect. He comes across as a combination of General Melchett (“a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face”) and Adrian Mole (still making a personal issue of Swann’s valid criticism).

    Finally, the rhetorical flourish:

    “No-one would dispute that and no-one would dispute that Cook will be remembered as one of England’s greatest batsmen. How history records him as a captain is yet to be decided but he has already won the Ashes and defeated India home and away in Test cricket. So it’s hardly the worst record.”

    Keep whitewashing that whitewash, Paul and co!

    • And if you think *I’m* annoyed, have a look at this:

      https://twitter.com/search?f=realtime&q=tickerscricket&src=typd

      Among the many fair points being made:

      “Dave Tickner ‏@tickerscricket · 54 mins
      Number of times Alastair Cook has reached 40 in ODIs: 35
      Number of times he’s turned 40 into 120: 1”

      Meanwhile, Pringle genuinely wrote this in 2014, not 2012:

      “Trott has not been replaced so readily in England’s one-day team, but his style of batting is quickly becoming redundant, as the recent criticism of Alastair Cook, another accumulator who bats deep into the innings, shows.”

      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/11100906/Jonathan-Trott-says-he-is-ready-to-play-for-England-again-after-his-stress-related-condition.html

      • Good lord Pringle, what Jonathan Trott, who averages 51 in ODI at a shade over 77 with 22x 50s and 4x 100s, who is in fact the ideal ODI accumulator if surrounded with a flexible line up of versatile batsman?

        These people, genuinely, must be idiots.

        That Newman piece is all we’ve come to expect really isn’t it?

        Seeing Cook’s over enthusiastic use of personal pronouns throughout I’m going to address him directly; it’s not about you Cook, don’t you get it? It’s about the team, it always has been and what’s best for the team is you scoring big runs as an opener in tests and not being captain of the ODI team.

        Seeing as how your batting form has completely disintegrated in the last 18 months, might be best if you step down as skipper in the test team too and go back to the ranks there as well, confident in the knowledge that “you” won in India and that “you” won the Ashes last summer and have done a fair job.

        • Damn James below. He got the gag in first. This interview was pure Smashy and Nicey. Lots of good work for charity surrounding a self-justification puff piece.

          That his biographer and chief fanboy was the conduit, putting his own french pastry on this puffery is of little surprise. He hasn’t so much jumped the shark, but gone on to appear in The Waterboy.

  • I am as big a KP supporter as anyone, but the above post is a bit OTT in my view, especially:

    ” a decent honest young man who’s only guilt is his over enthusiastic love of cricket”

    Really?

    I personally hope to read a true and frank account of the goings on in the dressing room, and in a balanced fashion, i.e. I hope he includes a bit of self-reflection. The fact that he seems to retain a hope of playing for England again may well suggest that he hasn’t gone over the top in the criticism stakes, and has maybe held back a bit.

    i certainly hope not though, and I can’t remember looking forward to a book’s release as much as this one.

    • Dave, he is a decent and honest young man.They are his good points.He is hard to get on with where cricket is concerned.I think we would all have to admit that but he does have a good cricket brain and must get frustrated with some of the nonsense that goes on .Most people do actually get on with him except some English cricketers.He doesn’t seem to have a problem with players from other countries.

      • We all know that great batsmen can sometimes be difficult, egotistical people – just think of one Geoff Boycott. However, teams accommodated them. Brearley handled a team containing egotists such as Boycott and Botham, eccentrics such as Knott and Randall, introverts such as Willis and Gower, straightforward pros such as Emburey, Willey and Gooch, etc etc and got the collective best out of them. I can only think of Edmonds as a guy he could not handle. I imagine that Viv Richards was not an easy person to get on with in the dressing-room either but did West indies ditch him prematurely? Gavaskar also seems to have had a bloody-minded streak but did India ditch him in the interests of team harmony? When he was captain of England, Hutton also showed that he was a difficult person to get on with – eg not telling Bedser in advance that he would not be playing at Sydney in 1954.

        • As even Paul Downton said, England were previously “a strong side with strong leadership that could accommodate Kevin”, but now “that balance has shifted and a new side won’t accommodate Kevin”.

  • I wrote toMr Selvey recently and received a reply. Opening para was that he did hot write his pieces in order to engage in debate but he would do me give me the courtesy of a reply. He then proceeded to ignore everything I had said and ended up telling me that nothing he wrote was to be published in the social media so I am keeping my word on that. The tone of it all rather took my breath away

    • Perhaps you should leak Selvey’s communique to a third party?

      His tone doesn’t come as any surprise. He is high-handed, to say the least.

  • Oh heavens. Here we go with the usual Newman guff. Plenty of Alastair is a good egg stuff (doing loads of work for ‘charrrity’ in a Smashy & Nicey way) and of course the obligatory mention that he’ll break all records and is one of England’s all time greats. No mention of 30 test inns without a century though. Nor any mention of 30 ODI inns without a ton either.

    Then we come to the captaincy thing. Newman can’t say anything about his tactical ability or man management skills, so we’re back to the usual lead from the front crap (which as we’ve discussed before means absolutely nothing other than err, actually playing in the match and doing his job as an opener). In this case, Newman tries to bolster his credentials by pretending that Cook was the first captain in history to stress the importance of creating a good team environment. Oh Newman you utter plonker. Anybody with half a brain knows this was one of Strauss’ priorities. I give up.

    I’m off to have a good lie down. My blood pressure is through the roof. Cook has had the easiest ride of any professional cricketer I can remember (by the media). Yet blokes like Selvey and Newman pretend he’s had a rough ride because a few morons had a go on social media – something all sportsmen get. Cook should thanks his lucky stars he isn’t a footballer!

    • Smashie and Nicey is just a brilliant , brilliant description James. It says it all, and sums up Cook and his moronic media hangers on. And we all know what happened to Mr Smash and Mr NIce. They got the sack.

      On a serious note, this sort of drooling, saccharine vomit means, I guess, the ECB is getting ready to announce A Cult as captain of the ODI team. That is when we will see for sure the ECB does not put Englands team first.

  • From the Newman interview with Cook:

    1) “A batsman who still looks destined to break every runscoring record in the English books”. Does this include, for example, highest average? Or only measures of volume like runs and centuries scored that take no account of the volume of matches England now play?
    2) On Shane Warne – the interview gives the impression that Warne’s only criticism was about the timing of the declaration against SL at Lord’s. Warne was critical of that (as were Holding and Botham, for example) but he was just as critical of the field placings on the last day (e.g. use of a deep cover when the required Run Rate was about 7 RPO, no gully for lengthy periods). Nasser Hussain was on commentary with Warne and was just as critical.
    3) “It was Ian Bell’s 100th Test and I was barely asked about that”. If Cook is so concerned about Bell’s coverage in the media why is he giving an interview to the jounalist who broke the story about Bell’s performance in a group bonding exercise years ago?
    4) Mostly the interview is notable for the questions it doesn’t ask. If one accepts the Pietersen issue is still confidential there are still issues like Matt Prior’s fitness, England’s playing schedule, the IPL, splitting the captaincy and coaching over different formats and others that need asking.

    • To be honest, I think the ECB and senior management of the England team’s “head in the sand approach” to the IPL and the earning potential for top cricketers in franchise T20 cricket is the kernel from which many many problems have sprung and will continue to do so.

      They are idiots.

      That it wasn’t addressed by Newman, who comes across as nothing more than a lackey who soft balls questions, is not surprising in the slightest, only sad.

  • Great piece Maxie, asks all the right questions, whether any of them are conclusively answered remains to be seen and will continue I fancy to be a source of frustration.

    As I’ve said before I don’t see a conspiracy based on the establishments’ prejudice towards one player I see a clumsily handled dropping of a high profile player which has created an information vacuum into which conjecture, conspiracy and frustrated opinion has attempted to fill.

    It’s entertaining to speculate and the ‘posh boys’ at the ECB do provide an appealing target but as a historian, your analogy of historical sources to me rings true – only the analysis of primary sources can provide satisfactory conclusions.

  • Well, obviously Newman asked Cook to talk about himself, but he really does come across in that interview as utterly, totally self-absorbed.
    And yet we’re always told about this other player who’s so narcissistic…. perhaps the other one just isn’t willing or able to dress it up in the right Mr Nice Guy suit.

    At least that piece does explain a bit about how Cook got a benefit from Essex, a team he basically doesn’t play for – I did wonder about that. And don’t most players do stuff for charity in their benefit years?

  • It may well be that the ECB does not leak in what you might call an official way. By that, I mean they type out their leak on official ECB headed note paper, and then send a copy to tame journalists. So in that sense John Etheridge is factually correct.

    But it is quite obvious that leaking goes on. Some of the stuff that has come out can only have come from very ‘in the know’ sources. Maxi gives a good example with Selvey. If someone at the ECB passes on a leak to a third party, who then passes it on to a journalist, that is a leak. And as far as I am concerned an ECB leak. John Etheridge can argue about semantics all he likes. He is still to reveal his source for the “returned goods” story.

    The ECB and it’s toadies are apoplectic about Piers Morgan. Now I would just like to say I have little time for Mr Morgan. I don’t like him or a lot of what he stands for. But the truth is he is the only major media figue who has stood by KP. I am not on twitter but I believe he has 3-4 million followers. This is considerably more than most individual newspapers. He has been able to use this platform to mount a strong defence of KP and the media puppets hate this. So they lash out at Morgan and his followers.

    The ECB has an incredible double standard. While stories seem to appear at regular intervals in papers by journalists who are loyal to to the ECB. Stories from KPs camp are attacked and rubbished as PIers Morgan leaking again. Members of the England team were passing on information to a third party who was running a mock twitter account ridiculing KP. Yet Cook in this cringing interview with Newman boasts about team spirit. These people are beyond contempt.

  • What irritates me most about the whole KP saga is that at the end of the day, somebody with immense and rare cricketing ability has lost out to the interests of pedestrian accumulators.

    If KP had spent his enormous batting talent on trying to bat like Cook he’d probably have averaged 60. If Cook had spent his career trying to bat like KP it’s almost unthinkable that he’d even have made it into first class cricket.

    Despite what Selvey or anyone else might say about Cook’s feats of self-absorbed, joyless crease occupation, the gulf in talent is truly vast. Heck, Bell is a sublime batsman but the gulf between his talent and KP’s is vast, too.

    Cricket without artistry is a pretty ordinary sport to watch frankly, and this seems to be the sort of cricket the ECB wants to bring you. Workmanlike, uncreative, tedious to witness and soon forgotten, like a board meeting transposed from the office to the square.

    • This is an excellent point John. I don’t think even those who have supported KP believe he is entirely blameless. It is also obvious that he is very difficult to manage.

      But at the end of the day there are a lot of England cricketers who have won a lot of matches and series because of what he has done. An army of nudgers and plodders, and quite frankly very boring cricketers have had a lot of success thanks to his work.

      One of the reasons this issue Is not dead for me, (despite the fact KP will never play for England again) is that the ECB seem to be going out of their way to stamp out any future KPs. The placing of Flower in charge of the next generation is not a great sign for the encouragement of the maverick flair player. Yes, these sort of players can be difficult, and a pain in the arse. But they do amazing things, which others cannot. The ECB may prefer an easier life dealing with obedient , deferential players, but they will lose out in the end.

    • Yes.

      The thing is this: they can bust their collective guts trying to sell me Cook as a handsome heartthrob with a stirring emotional journey, a noble mission and an army of vindictive enemies.

      It doesn’t work.

      HE’S BORING.

      Sorry.

    • John,

      It doesn’t matter how often Newman and Selvey tell me that Cook is one of the greatest Englishmen ever to pick up a bat, it simply won’t wash. All they have is aggregate stats. On almost no other criteria is he a true great. Personally, if I were picking the best English XI I’ve ever seen (that’s 1981-present) he wouldn’t even be considered. In fact, if I were picking a best English XI of just the last ten years, taking batsmen at their peak, he would still lose out to Strauss and Trescothick c.2003-05. Unlike certain people I freely admit this is a subjective preference. But I would argue first of all that Strauss made five hundreds in ten Tests against SA away and Australia at home, and secondly that Cook is simply not capable of playing the sort of game-changing innings that Trescothick did at The Oval 2003, Johannesburg 2005 and Edgbaston 2005. Which reminds me, Tres at Edgbaston 2005 – now *that’s* what a series-transforming, momentum-changing innings that ended in the 90s *really* looks like.

      Also, in the same period there are only 5 English openers who have played more than one full Ashes series at home. Guess which of them has the lowest average in those series? Alastair Cook. In two winning series. Not, for example, the current Sky commentator who faced Hughes, Reiffel, Warne, May, MCGRATH, Gillespie, Kasprowicz and Lee in three full losing series, plus Alderman and Lawson at the end of a fourth.

      James Morgan’s ‘The Cult of Alastair Cook’ piece on this very site has a number of other counter-arguments and I would strongly recommend revisiting it. The despairing thing is that *none* of these points are ever addressed. There is no inclination to look at his record in the round, or examine his flaws: all is glory. The result of this is that you get occasional BTL-ers stating that “he has the best record for any English Test player”, and the likes of Hobbs, Hammond and Hutton turn in their graves.

      • You would think that surely everyone connected with the story must be united in one respect : they must all wish they had the sort of talent that KP has got.

        Who wouldn’t want to be able to walk out in a test match and average nearly 50 pinging length balls on off stick for four, or sweeping Shane Warne for six from a good length, or switch hitting medium pacers whenever the fancy took them?

        KP may not, I suspect, be very good at hiding the fact that he knows that he is fundamentally a different class of player from his teammates, and maybe that’s a big part of the trouble. But I also suspect that, for players who have made it the the highest level only by jettisoning everything spontaneous and carefree and joyful from their cricket, someone who constantly outplays them with these parts of their game still intact must be easy to dislike.

    • I’ve been prompted to comment on your post because someone is attributing your comments to me. This is fascinating because until now I’ve never visited this site or blogged about cricket (and won’t again) but without any more evidence than the name ‘John’ someone is criticising me for the praise that you are heaping on KP. I’ve not been a big fan of KP and don’t agree with much of what you say but frankly I don’t care about the KP debate. KP’s done and gone and whatever he might have done or not done is in the past.

      • Well I’m sorry somebody thinks you’re me, if that helps. Let me be totally clear on this for any interested parties, anyone who doesn’t recognise that KP can do some exceptionally rare and brilliant things with a cricket bat obviously doesn’t know the first thing about batting and should give up watching the game for the mutual benefit of all concerned.

      • I’m a bit confused about who was saying what to which John, but apologies if it got out of hand. I don’t think anyone was being *too* critical, though.

        • Well I presume this other John has been taking some flak on my behalf in some other thread somewhere else. It all seems fairly polite here.

  • Maxie picked up on the words I’ve been banging on about..”Truth and transparency”..It’s all we.”outside cricket” or “the cricketing public” really want! We, and Sky subscribers (which, thankfully, I am not) pay every bugger’s wages and is the very least I think we are entitled to!
    Newman, himself, describes the ECB as being “anal” around their communiques, but why aren’t any of the “cricketing journalists” probing why this should be? It can’t surely be that they simply view themselves as a gentlemen’s club and that the hoi polloi should know their place and meekly accept any small crumb that falls from their increasingly groaning table? Is it?
    As to Newman’s bilious puff piece, my deliberate and considerate critique of that particular tome is….Baarrrrfffff!!!

    • I hate to tell you this Dave, but I think it is run exactly like a gentleman’s club. Cook is wearing the right tie, we are not.

  • In the interests of openness and balance Maxie, given your brook-no-opposition stance on Kevin Pietersen, what exactly IS your connection to Piers Morgan?

  • STOP READING PAUL NEWMAN!!!!!!!!!!!

    STOP READING MIKE SELVEY!!!!!!!!!!!

    You give them relevance by discussing them at such god awful exhaustive length, let alone by increasing their readership figures when you keep clicking on their links.

    This comments thread is the same as about 90% of the rest of the threads on this blog.

  • Whether or not Alastair Cook is competent to play for and captain the England cricket team can be determined quite simply from the objective answers to some pretty straightforward questions. (1) Is he scoring enough runs? (2) Is he scoring his runs quickly enough? (3) Do his leadership qualities inspire and motivate his team? (4) Do his on-field decisions as captain improve the team’s game position? (5) Is the team winning matches?

    Matters that do not affect Cook’s abilities as a cricketer include (1) how tall and handsome he may be; (2) the niceness of his wife and family; (3) his charity work; (4) how proud he may be to wear the three lions; (5) how desperate he is to keep his job; (6) his resilience to criticism; (7) how good a bloke he may be; (8) the school he went to; (9) his nappy-changing skills; (10) his star sign; and (11) his shoe size.

    Yet it is self evident which type of quality pre-occupies a significant section of the press. When the authorities employ such flagrant deflection strategies, it only serves to highlight the real issues that they are seeking to avoid. And let no member of this press deny that they are not, in some way, embedded, when they choose to follow the route of soft-focus puff pieces instead of asking even halfway pertinent questions.

    Cook complained to Paul Newman that he could recall no other cricket captain who has had to justify his future and position as often as he had. This may in part be due to a short memory and in part due to the fact that other skippers would not have survived a cull. Newman could have asked Cook such a simple question: “Why do you think it is, Alastair, that you are asked so often to justify your position and future?” But, hey, that would be too great a nod to proper journalism.

    The objective answers to the proper questions are that Cook, for now, should open for tests but be relieved of the captaincy, and he should be dropped completely from the ODI side. As Cook might say, simple deal.

    So when Paul Downton told us, in relation to Pietersen’s sacking, that there was no smoking gun, but that he was let go for good cricketing reasons, it seemed a reasonable, if unlikely, criterion for assessing his employability. The window of continuing opportunity is a very short one. Ask Nick Compton. How then – when the cricketing stats are stacked up, weighed and found wanting – has Alastair Cook avoided being handed the Black Spot? Why has he escaped spending more time with his family? Where are the grey men in suits when the results and team need them?

    I have recently written, inter alia, a couple of parody articles for TFT. In a July piece, I suggested that James Taylor was too small to play for England, and, in another, in May, I prefixed all references to Pietersen with modifiers such as “South-African born” and needless asides such as “who hails from Pietermaritzburg. I am bemused that Northants skipper Stephen Peters only yesterday confessed that Taylor’s diminutive stature is the only reason he can think of for the prodigious batter’s exclusion from the England team, while Michael Calvin in the Independent in July gratuitously referred to Strauss’s strained relationship with “the Pietermaritzburg-born batsman.” You can’t even make it up!

    • What I find baffling is why this constant puffery has to continue. In many ways Cook and the ECB have won. KP has gone,and ain’t coming back. England somehow managed to recover and win the series against India.( Not because of anything Cook did) And it ensures his place as captain going into the Ashes next year.

      So why the continual propaganda? Why do we keep getting the puff puffery “Cooks a jolly good bloke” meme rammed down our throats? There is no logic do it. Unless of course, deep down in the souls of these cricket writers there is doubt. They know he is not a very good captain. Which is why they keep trotting out the “leading from the front” nonsense. They know his record with bat is poor over the last 18 months, hence the obsession about “breaking records.” We can go on and on.

      There is another theory. England just don’t ever want another KP type. England is now just a brand to be marketed to up market sponsors. looks and good blokeness,and photogenic pictures of Mr Nice on his tractor are much more important . Giles Clarke’s ludicrous comments about the right sort of family hint at the real truth. England does not belong to the nation. It has been hijacked by a bunch of corporate spivs. They will run it to make money and only the right sort of people will be allowed in. It is as much a message to all the other players out there. It does not matter how good you are. You won’t get in without a tie.

        • But why do they care if KPs book comes out?

          He is not going to play again for England. Cook will stay as captain for next years Ashes. Cook is secure, so why the constant puf puffery?

          I just don’t understand why they have to act like cringinging courtiers. As I say, maybe they are not so confident in Cook themselves. Which is why they feel they have to cover for him. I get that they don’t like KP. What I don’t get is why they have in inflate Cook to the role of Don Bradmam.

          • I don’t understand the constant Cook puffery either but I can only think this timing is to do with KP’s book due to be published.

            Cook doesn’t know his cricket history at all, I’d say, Other skippers have been under just as much pressure. Vaughan was really under the hammer in his last year as skipper and half the Sky commentary team have been hate figures at some time or another.

  • Off Topic…..

    But the ECB has now charged the Yorkshire captain Andrew Gale with Racism. Apparently calling someone the term Kolpack is racist.

    Gale becomes the first ever county cricketer to be charged with a racist offence. There seems to be so many ironies here one does not know where to start. First off, when you think of all the race issues that have occurred in cricket it is almost unbelievable that it should involve the word Kolpack. Second, when you see how many people are employed by the ECB who went on rebel tours to South Africa when black people couldn’t vote. Third, the ECB has not banned anyone involved in the racist booing of one of their own players against India. And never mind the money the ECB spent defending the loutish behaviour of Jimmy Anderson.

    This smacks of over kill, and petty vindictiveness by an organisation that seems to specialise in petty vindictiveness. I am sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact he tried to pick up the cup at the ceremony.

  • Many thanks for all your excellent comments, and sorry I’ve not had time to reply to more.

    Re the Cook interview – ah, there is so much to enjoy.

    “I can’t remember an England captain who’s had to discuss his position and future as much as I have”.

    Er…has it occurred to him why that might be?

    Meanwhile, this year’s award for worst fictional love scene goes to Mr P Newman of Chelmsford:

    “Cook is in his element and the people of this vibrant community club warm to him, as spectators around the country have all summer, as he spends 13 hours at Wanstead, not leaving until late in the night when every photo has been taken and every autograph signed. And he is not doing it just for himself either”.

    “It was during that third Test that the English cricketing public showed without doubt that they were still supporting their captain”.

    I’m fed up of that stupid argument. The ground was half-empty. The disaffected – of whom there are many – didn’t turn up.

    • I’d be grateful if you could find the time to answer my question above, Maxie, particularly as it was directed to you and you’ve found to reply to comments that weren’t. Thank you in anticipation.

    • I was at the Rose Bowl and I stood up and applauded Cook’s 95 along with most of the crowd (the ground looked pretty full to me). I was applauding a fine innings by an English batsman who had been under a lot of pressure. I did not think he should be Captain before, during or after the innings and my applause was not for his captaincy but for his batting. As for why everyone else in the ground was applauding, I can’t speak to their motives. Neither can Cook.

  • Why would it matter if Maxie and James knew Piers Morgan or not? Are you suggesting he’d have an influence over them in some way? Why?

    Quite a few people who blog or comment on cricket have contacts in the game or in the media. Would that be any reason to suppose that they can’t think for themselves?

    • It’s like I said above. Piers Morgan sends the pro ECB, pro Cook groupies bat s**t insane. They are obsessed by him.

      They have every so called cricket writer on board, yet it’s not enough for them. If you once served Morgan in a restaurant or emptied his bins or delivered his milk you are obviously part of a a giant one man conspiracy or something. No dissent will be tolerated.

    • There is irony in your response in that this blog has accused journalists on many occasions of being the recipients of leaks from the ECB while at the same time themselves being leaked to by Mr Morgan. I know many TV producers but I have never one who hadn’t met the person whose programme they were producing. One has reason to ask oneself why Maxie would obfuscate in that regard unless it was to protect Mr Morgan who receives his leaks from the mouth of the horse.

      • “I know many TV producers but I have never one who hadn’t met the person whose programme they were producing.”

        You will know, then, that it depends entirely on the kind of programme it is and whether the presenter has any editorial input or is merely linking pre-prepared packages. I’ve never been behind the scenes of Piers Morgan’s TV show, or watched it, so I don’t know how it works.

        “this blog has accused journalists on many occasions of being the recipients of leaks from the ECB while at the same time themselves being leaked to by Mr Morgan.”

        Now you’re just making things up.

      • Like I said, I don’t know him personally. I’ve met him briefly three or four times. If I get hired again for that show, come down with me, Shirley, and you can see what it involves.

        So that’s what I do – what about you?

      • He didn’t say he hadn’t met him, he said he doesn’t know him. I’ve met the Prince of Wales, but we don’t have tea together.

        Maxie has said many times he worked on Life Stories. In response to your enquiry, he posted you an article detailing his work on the programme. That’s not obfuscation. He uses his real name on the blog, so you can just look him up, as you did.

        Maxie directs the interviews they cut in to the Life Stories programme, which aren’t filmed in the studio and don’t involve Piers Morgan.

        So your entire argument is ‘Maxie has met Piers Morgan’.

        Profound.

      • This is just sad. If TFT was a Pietersen mouthpiece, why oh why would I personally go to such lengths to stress that he hasn’t been missed (in my opinion) and his technical unorthodoxy and reliance on a front foot game would’ve brought a premature end to his test career anyway. All views are welcome on this blog. Why not talk cricket ‘Shirley’?

      • I think he said he didn’t know him personally not that he’d never met him. The blog made it clear that he had worked on his programme.

      • “This blog has accused journalists on many occasions of being the recipients of leaks from the ECB while at the same time themselves being leaked to by Mr Morgan”.

        The second part of this sentence is not true. PM has never told us anything whatsoever. All I know of Kevin Pietersen is what’s in the public domain.

  • hmm, Piers Morgan vs the ECB.

    One awful dick stands alone vs a whole bag of dicks, and god help me I love an underdog.

  • How noteworthy that the ECB pillories a man who selflessly Captained Yorkshire to the pinnacle, and probably has more captaincy skills in his little finger than Cook will ever have in his lifetime. I wish someone could Kolpack that useless and inept bunch of cretins!!

    • I know Dave. It is turning into a governing body not fit for purpose. Stacked to the gunnels with card carrying members of the rebel tours of South Africa they now charge a man for the first racist case in English cricket. Because he called someone Kolpack.

      It’s turning into an episode of Ripping Yarns. Michael Palin plays the role of Giles Clarke.

  • Here is Shirley’s review of one of Aggers’ books on Amazon.

    “Jonathan Agnew has chosen a selection of writings on cricket, old and new, that all watchers and students of cricket will appreciate – a wonderful compendium compiled with great care, and obvious affection, by one of the current day’s most authoritative commentators.

    A book to be savoured, and kept after reading, to be dipped into time and time again.”

    Your comments are to be savoured too, Shirley. Or should I say Pam?

    • My name is Shirley – your claims of me being called Pam are untrue. I would not buy, nor review, a book of Mr Agnew’s – for reasons unconnected with cricket he is not someone I admire. What I do admire is your consistent propensity for producing conspiracy theories. They do you little credit.

    • Ahh

      As they used to say during the McCarthy hearings “are you now or have you ever been a member of the Aggers fan club?”

      What is extraordinary is you would make a comparison between any leaks from Piers Morgan on the one hand, and leaks from the ECB who are the governing body of English cricket. It’s not exactly a level playing field.

    • That’s pretty funny, to be honest, the worst insult you can throw at Shirley is to pretend you think she’s me.

      • I’m pretty sure I could think of a few more Pam. What about using ‘facts’ rather than uninformed guesswork? I know you’re big on ‘facts’, and are always ready to condemn something unless it’s been verified 100% by a secondary source.

        Nice of you to drop in by the way. Funny how you suddenly stumbled across this debate. It’s almost like you were following this thread before ;-)

  • Thanks for highlighting this article. I actually felt sick after reading. In what universe would this hack be considered a professional journalist? Certainly not in this one. I expected it to finish with the words “and we walked hand in hand into the sunset.

  • Gut feeling is we will all be a bit disappointed in KP’s book if we were expecting him to blurt out every wart from his English tenure. Partly because he has (or had?) an agreement with the ECB, the terms to which I have no idea, but what we do know is that both parties had a gagging order on each other (I think the ECB did break ranks slightly from memory). Where we go after that, I don’t know. Perhaps when his career is completely over, we might get a full story – but whilst he has contracts out there plus potential future ones, I doubt he will not want to rock any boat that may jeopardise his future cash position. Keep the head down for another 3-4 years, rake in a few more million, then he’s set for a blockbuster book.
    How’s this for a kicker – KP turns his international career around and plays for SA. Kepler Wessels did this after a stint with Australia, so why not?

    • I agree about the book, Doug. I expect it to contain accounts of the various times when he was right about cricket tactics and choices and the management was wrong, but framed in a ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ kind of way. His versions of events will come as no surprise to people who value his expertise and cricket brain, and those who dislike him will see it all as self-justification, we won’t be much further on.

      The SA idea would be a hoot, but I can’t see them having a place for him except in a T20 side and he could do that elsewhere.

      The ECB haven’t seen the last of him though. As a player, maybe, but he’ll still be about, with a lot of contacts and a lot of money. It’s not like the old days when they could turn a player away and he’d go quietly off back to his home town to work in the family firm and never be heard of again. I really hope Pietersen makes a go of his cricket academies, it’ll be hilarious to see all these young guys turning up at England’s door who’ve been raised the KP way. And his agency will be representing them.

      • Their is precedence – Kepler Wessels (SA-AUS-SA), Luke Ronchi (AUS-NZ). I’m sure there are others historically. If we were having this discussion 10 years ago about KP switching, it would defo be one for massive debate (also to include the 3 lions ink he has). He is a gun for hire these days and SA don’t need him.
        But we are talking about Kevin Pietersen here……………….

        • Biggest problem for KP is age. He is 34 going on 35. No way SA would take back a player of that age. (And he has become injury prone) not that it would be possible anyway. He would have to re qualify and he would be 40 odd by then.

          In some ways KP is not the issue any more. He represents where team England is now going. Away from flair and mavericks. They don’t want his sort any more. Which is a shame because he won a lot of matches for England.

          David Brent style management and Cook style captaincy is the future. Cheered on by a bunch of average, boring ex players.

          • “He won a lot of matches for England”

            Isn’t that a bit of a myth, he contributed to a lot of success, but did he win many games almost single handledly, he certainly didn’t save many.

            • “he certainly didn’t save many.”

              Well, let’s just start with the big number one: Oval 2005

              Saved a match, won a series, spawned a legend.

              ;)

              • “Has to be said that he has never been reliable in a crisis.”

                Sigh.

                People can say what they like about Pietersen as a man, but even a cursory glance at his career reveals him to have had his finest moments under intense pressure. He came in to the side on a tour of South Africa and, whilst England were being thrashed and in front of one of the most hostile crowds ever witnessed at a cricket match, Pietersen scored three magical centuries and top scored in a fourth. Can you think of a player who has made his debut in more difficult circumstances and yet shone so brightly?

                He made his Test debut in the following Ashes and, again whilst England was being thrashed, top-scored in both innings. In the fifth Test, can there have been more pressure on a batsman, more of a crises? England had got in to a position to win their first Ashes for 18 years and they were collapsing to defeat, a nation’s hopes destroyed. He stood firm, scored a century, and won the series.

                Keep flicking through his career and the story is the same. KP often played his greatest innings in a crises, when the pressure could hardly have been greater.

                Think about the second Test, 2012: KP is an outcast in the dressing room and about to be sacked, playing against the best bowling attack in the world. England’s getting thumped. Does he collapse with the rest of them? No, he plays one of the all-time great innings.

                England’s being beaten in Sri Lanka, who hits a series saving ton? KP. Mumbai? KP. And so on and so on.

              • THA, your absolutely right in what you say about KP standing up in some big moments. Sadly though, I think many people are remembering his last Ashes where he did not play those big match saving innings, but carelessly threw his wicket away time after time. Yes he was the top scorer for England during the series, but with a 5-0 scoreline, he was top scorer of not a lot. You could tell by the way he was playing that this was it, the end of England, his England career over and he was making his own statement. Ignore the “that’s how I play” nonsense he was saying, he was telling us what he really thought of the whole disaster.
                Maybe that nugget might come out in the book………….

              • Strange how you interpret KP’s attitude in OZ.I watched him play every game in Oz including the warmup game in Sydney and my interpretation was quite different.He knew he was banging his head against a brick wall trying the get the team playing a winning game.KP has a cricket brain and must have been so frustrated with the tactics used by AF and Cook.I think by the last Test in Sydney and the nonsense that had gone on in Melbourne he was ready to say ” stuff you all” even though he really hates losing.My interpretation!

              • I’m not even surprised anymore people say these things without even having a look at his record.

                Did he win games for England? Well, let’s start with an easy one – 2010 Wt20. Player of the tournament? One Mr K Pietersen…

              • It is well documented that Warne dropped KP on 15 (or thereabouts), but his retort is that nobody mentoned Gilchrist dropping KP on nought! I never knew that – who was the bowler?

  • “, and just maybe, some specific and genuine information which sheds light on the ugliest chapter in English cricket history since the rebel tours”

    I wouldn’t get your hopes up… they might have been a few rows and a lot of mud slinging/side taking, but I firmly believe that the people who made the decision made it after concluding the team/dressing room would be better without KP.
    Whether you agree with this is of course a subject that has been debated (to death) all summer.
    I re-iterate my original opinion (which hasn’t changed) – sacking him was a disgrace, he should have just been dropped and told he wasn’t in current plans.

    • James here. I agree Neil. They would’ve avoided some of the controversy, wouldn’t have backed themselves into a corner re: Cook, and if everything went tits up they could always give KP a recall at some point.

      • Nail on the head there Neil, I completely agree, just stop picking him unless his form makes it impossible not to. Regardless of contrasting position on KP, personally think he should be shoe in in T20 and then subject to form and fitness in all other forms. If he hadn’t been very publicly sacked, none of this ludicrousness would have mushroomed to the extent it has.

        That one decision, which had some cricketing merit, and the terms since used to describe it, has been the catalyst for disgruntled paying fans to look at other things being done badly and start pointing it out.

        It was and remains and act of crass stupidity which looks like nothing more than an act of spite.

      • It would be nice to think that but if he had been dropped there would have been an equal never ending furore until he was reinstated. Not something that could have been done quietly.

  • Just to put matters on the record, I’ve listed my lack of connections to international cricket and cricketers (and Rory Burns) in the appropriate place. I maybe should have declared that my mates got KP to sign a book for me, and that another mate once had his picture taken with him, and said “I’m sending it back to London to a mate who is in love with you”. A bit strong.

    Good grief. This stuff gets better and better.

    • Hi Dmitri. Hope you are feeling better.

      It is amazing the thought process the ECB/Cook “insiders” have towards us “outsiders.” They have convinced themselves we are all under some mind control of Piers Morgan. I don’t actually like Morgan very much, and I think he is wrong to think KP will play for England again. Ain’t going to happen.i am not on Twitter so have no idea what he is saying on a day to day basis.

      No, it is the insiders who are under a mind control. So devoted are they to Agnew and Selvey and Pringle and Newman they can’t see reality staring them in the face. Cook is a crap captain, and increasingly an out of form batsman. One of the reasons the ECB/ Cook mind control business concentrates so much on issues like (jolly good bloke, handsome, tall, tractor driving, salt of the earth type) is they are selling an image. Cook has become just like corn flakes or bog paper.

      Cook represents where brand England is now going. Boring, conformist, conservative, overly cautious, and lacking in flair. Will the ECB be brave enough to drop him from the one day side?

      • A bit better thanks. Putting a different perspective on all this blogging lark.

        I agree about the marketing aspects of this. Clearly the ECB think Cook is a great ambassador for them. Anyone besmirching that has to be dealt with some way. However, as in all life, it is easy to take the lazy generalisations rather than specific issues. I’m losing count how many time I say that Piers Morgan has sod all to do with the way I think.

        I’ll wager a lot more of the media than we think KNOW Cook is a crap captain on the field. But what’s the point, in the modern world, where access is controlled, in rocking the boat? What would you do?

        • Yes I agree that more of the media know they are supporting a very poor captain. It will be interesting to see what happens when Cook is replaced. Whether there is any back tracking.

          Also, who ever gets the job next (Joe Root) say, let’s see if there is the same blanket coverage or if journalists start thinking for themselves rather than act as a bland pack.

      • Does anyone like Piers Morgan? Only Piers Morgan likes Piers Morgan, perhaps. However, it cannot be doubted that he is a useful irritant, as he has a bigger audience for his tweets and newspaper columns than any of us for our views and is capable of stinging a response out of the ECB from time to time.

  • Thanks again for all your comments – this has become an epic thread! Sorry not to have been around much or responded to many comments – have been very busy with the day job, a TV programme which, in the spirit of openness, I shall disclose is presented by Carol Vorderman.

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