South Africa deny provoking Pietersen. “We’d rather choke than provoke” says official

“I can’t believe he fell for it … ha ha ha”

Jacques Faul, South African cricket’s acting CEO, yesterday hit out at David Collier’s attempt to make the Cricketboks Faul guys for the KP debacle. In case you were distracted by the World T20 yesterday – yes, didn’t the Windies do well – Collier claimed that KP’s mates in the South African dressing room had provoked him into sending his infamous ‘provocative texts’.

So basically, another level of provocation has been added. Let’s do a brief recap here …

Nick Knight provoked KP by talking twaddle in the commentary box; KP provoked the ECB by criticising the Sky employee in return; the ECB provoked KP by making him retire from T20s when all he wanted to do was skip the ODIs; then KP provoked the England players by wanting to pick and choose the games he played; the England players responded by provoking KP over the KPGenius twitter account; and now we hear that the South Africans allegedly provoked KP into sending those provocative Blackberry messages which in turn provoked the mother of all farces.

Blimey. This one’s got more twists and turns in it than an Inzamam quick single.

In an interview with the BBC, Collier claimed “I think there was a tactic which was used” by the (presumably) ex-mates of Pietersen. “I think that is sadly some of the ways of modern sport.”

Of course, Mr Faul, who obviously doesn’t suffer Faul’s lightly, responded angrily: “I am very disappointed that this has played out in the media. It is absolutely not true that our players provoked Pietersen.”

And why would they? That Graeme Smith is one of the nicest men you would ever want to meet. He spends his spare time bottle-feeding milk to lost lambs.

And of course, it must be stressed – above all else – that it wasn’t the South Africans who leaked the messages in the first place. Definitely not.

Although they were private communications between allegedly close friends – and the only people who would have seen them were Pietersen himself and the recipients – the South Africans were totally innocent bystanders (victims you could say).

The fact these messages became public knowledge is one of the great mysteries of our time. In fact, the incident remains one of the best examples of the mischievous and entirely random nature of the supernatural known to man. It’s almost as mysterious as all record of the messages, and a precise knowledge of their content, being deleted from history.

One thing we can all be sure of, however, is that these messages definitely won’t reappear on the eve of the next crucial encounter between England and South Africa. They especially won’t if KP is playing. And they especially, especially, won’t if KP is in great form and scored a brilliant hundred in the previous match.

James Morgan

4 comments

  • Interesting you should make reference to the South African captain bottle feeding orphaned lambs in his spare time because yesterday’s radio interview (and much else since we learned KP is to be reintegrated) was nothing more than a wool pulling exercise.

  • I found the Collier statement a strange one and he seemed to want deflect from the issues. However, don’t now be surprised if SA release the content of the texts sent at an appropriately embarrassing point in time for England such as just before the first Ashes text next summer.

  • I read that the messages were sent via blackberry messenger. Does that mean there cannot be any record of them? Does it work like yahoo messenger? I’m an Android man so not sure.

    • There shouldn’t be any permanent record of them. Doesn’t mean, though, that they won’t give their own account of what they said…

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