The dossier fallout continues

First off, I’d like to invite you to read the excellent review of Pietersen’s book by our contributor Tregaskis, which we published last night. We are very grateful to him for sourcing a review copy and putting the time aside to write this fine piece.

But to the dossier, which we first analysed here, and some of you have also discussed here. The Daily Telegraph’s Paul Hayward nails it:

If this "dossier" is all the ECB have, anyone who briefed that Pietersen was sacked for documented crimes in Aus now has a case to answer.

— Paul Hayward (@_PaulHayward) October 7, 2014

The point was always: did they concoct a spurious justification for ending Pietersen's England career because they just didn't like him?

— Paul Hayward (@_PaulHayward) October 7, 2014

This story has never been about Kevin Pietersen the individual, but the actions and ethos of the ECB. The real significance of the dossier is not what Pietersen did, but what he didn’t do – namely, anything which deserved the sack. They have lied about the real reasons – vendettas and prejudice – and in so doing betrayed the cricketing public.

This is what has made us so angry. We were outraged not because of our adoration for Pietersen but because we knew we had been swindled. And here’s the proof. There are no two ways about it: we were right all along, and by ‘we’ I mean not this particular blog and Dmitri but everyone in the crickosphere who has made the case with such conviction and tenacity since February 4th.

We were always told – well, just wait till you hear the other side of the story. It turns out that there isn’t one.

The emergence of the document is probably more important than the autobiography. It is a window into the ECB’s soul, and a portrait of a team in ruins. After months of silence, obfuscation, and Downtonian dissembling, here is what the board actually think. It is prima facie evidence about events in Australia and their handling by Andy Flower.

In the ECB’s view, Kevin Pietersen told a private team meeting that Flower should no longer be coach. Matt Prior and Alastair “Cooky” Cook passed this on to Flower, even though the meeting was deliberately held without management to clear the air and allow a free exchange of views. Why did they do this? To earn brownie points by telling tales? Out of duty? Or out of fear? Was Cook terrified of Flower’s response if he later discovered what had happened but Cook failed to tell him?

Flower reacted to the Cook-Prior missive with fury. He refused to speak to Pietersen – one of his few senior players – for an entire week, an extraordinarily childish and unprofessional thing for an international sports coach to do. Flower then sacked Pietersen – the document confirms that it was his decision.

Was Pietersen in the wrong to tell his teammates Flower should go? If so, what is the point of a private team meeting? If you think the coach is failing, are you not allowed to share that view with fellow players?

Flower emerges as a puritanical and paranoid control-freak who operated by enforcing petty rules and policing misbehaviour. He cared obsessively about his own status and power, and was that at the expense of managing talent? He appears to have encouraged players and assistants to spy on Pietersen. Did he put anyone else under surveillance?

His regime tolerated no dissent or free speech. Even private views landed you in trouble. No margin was given or tolerated. He created a police state and a culture of fear. What effect did this have on the other players in the squad? How easy was it for them to express themselves and settle in?

Remember, Flower is still a very senior figure at the ECB. He is director of elite performance, and de facto Lions coach. Virtually every new player to represent England over the next few years must come through the Flower process. He continues to have enormous influence over the culture of Team England and, presumably, on selection. If a promising young player refuses to embrace and respect the tenets of Flowerism, he will not be recommended to the selectors.

Here’s something else: is Flower leaking? Either directly, or in such a way that he knows the tales will get to a hack. Paul Newman often bandies around the idea that Pietersen traduced James Taylor – and did so in his earshot, in the dressing room, to humiliate him. Here’s Pietersen’s side of the story, as told to George Dobell of Cricinfo.

GD Do you think you have ever been guilty of bullying another player? 

KP No. Never. But I know what you’re getting at. You’re talking about James Taylor. Because there’s this lie out there that I rubbished him in front of the team. It’s not true. I spoke to Andy Flower about him. It was a private conversation. It was a senior player talking to the coach in private. I expressed my views when asked. To have private conversations turned into a media story on Monday morning that I was ridiculing James Taylor in the dressing room is ridiculous. Has anyone bothered to ask him if it’s true?

GD I have, yes. He said that he didn’t hear you say anything. He was told second-hand that you might have done, but he wasn’t aware of it at the time. 

KP Well, there you are then. He’s clearly an honest lad. Look, I had some pretty good ideas. I was a senior player. I had captained various teams. I had played right around the world. And I wanted the best for England cricket. So the coach might have asked my opinion. So I expressed my views – and sometimes he hated them. But I was isolated and private conversations became newspaper stories.

How did that Taylor conversation get into the papers? And why has so much of the dossier already been reported, with great accuracy? Only Flower himself would have been particularly interested in the whistling and window business – how did those very specific details get out?

Meanwhile, several of the dossier’s key claims have already unravelled. Not only has the ‘young player’ Pietersen took drinking in Adelaide turned out to be Stuart Broad, the T20 captain and then a veteran of 63 tests, but it wasn’t even in breach of the rules.

I’m grateful to The Other KP for finding this. At the time, an ECB spokesperson said: “They are free to do as they please – they are grown men. There has been no breach of team protocol”.

This morning, Michael Carberry made it plain that any remarks made about him by Pietersen were of no significance.

Morning!!Just to set the record straight re: @KP24 .Ive never had any issues with Kev. We have always got on well and still do

— michael carberry (@carbs646) October 8, 2014

And what about the physio’s claim that Pietersen threatened to quit after Perth? Back to the Dobell interview.

GD Is there any truth in the story that you threatened to quit the Ashes tour while in Perth? 

KP No, no. Why would I do that? It’s a ridiculous story. The only issue was with my knee. I almost didn’t play in that Test. My knee was really hurting. I was batting the day before the Test and I walked out of the nets and told Andy that I was really struggling. I called the physio over. But that’s not the same as trying to quit a tour, is it?

No. And if Pietersen’s knee was in jeopardy, what would have been the point of risking it further if the series had already been lost? It’s a fair guess that this was the real discussion at the time, but has since been distorted and magnified for propaganda purposes. But we’re used to that.