Cricket: General Chat

[lapal_fan]

you could sort of tell there's been a bit of a poisonous atmosphere in the camp though..

 

Trott's illness, Swann comes across as quite bitter about most of the newcomers, the whole KP saga, Strauss calling him a word removed on air etc.

 

You can tell it's been very divisional in the dressing room.

[Risso]

Perhaps unfairly, but Swann always struck me as being an absolute word removed whenever I've heard him interviewed.

[dAVe80]

Perhaps unfairly, but Swann always struck me as being an absolute word removed whenever I've heard him interviewed.

 

I think it's his "cheeky chappy" persona that makes people think like that. I get the feeling, with his recent radio work with TMS especially, he's now trying to make a name for himself as a commentator, so doesn't want to be seen as holding back. Problem is, he's not far enough removed from the current team, so can come across as a bit bitter.

[PaulC]

Yes Swann is a bit of a cheeky chappy. Matt Prior is one I have never really warmed to. Can't knock his test record but he comes across as an aggressive individual.

[lapal_fan]

Swann just bitches and moans about spinners not being as good as him... until Moeen started doing well, now he just has nothing of note to say.

 

He'll be like Phil Tuffnel soon, just arsing around.

[MrDuck]

Revealing comments from Ponting...

 

 

Ponting, who captained Australia to three Ashes series defeats out of four between 2005 and 2011, claimed that England’s spectacular collapse to a 5-0 whitewash last winter did not surprise him, because of the divisions that had been papered over by previous success.

He named Jimmy Anderson and Graeme Swann, two of the dominant clique of senior bowlers referred to as bullies by Pietersen in his autobiography, as the worst offenders, and said that even the early departures of Jonathan Trott and Swann from the Ashes tour could have been foreseen.

“We saw them doing it – Anderson was always the same, and Swann,” said Ponting. “The pointing of fingers and you’d hear a few expletives if there was a misfield or a dropped catch. The guys who were doing it were the so-called leaders. That’s where the captain has got to come in, not wait and let little things turn into big things. That’s what it sounds like has happened in this England team.

“They had a lot of very good players that were able to achieve a lot of success as a team. But if you could just get inside of them and start pulling them apart, we always had a feeling they would implode pretty quickly and that’s what’s happened over the past 12 months.

“I wasn’t surprised with Trott, I wasn’t surprised with Swann retiring when he did. When the ship started to go down, he jumped off pretty quickly

 

 

Comments from Boycott, Tremlett, Carberry and Vaughan all also suggesting that KP's side of the story has the ring of truth.

[Risso]

 

 

Comments from Boycott, Tremlett, Carberry and Vaughan all also suggesting that KP's side of the story has the ring of truth.

 

Especially after Alec Stewart has grassed up Swann, Broad and Bresnan for knowing the password to the KPGenius Twitter account.  I think this is going to rumble on for a while yet.  Swann won't much care because the coward bottled out of the last series anyway, but it could and should have repercussions for Broad, if true.

[dAVe80]

Broad is the one for me, who seems like he'd be the biggest word removed. Don't get me wrong, I like him as a cricketer, and he's given England fans many moments of joy, but he just seems like he'd be a right moody git.

Edited October 9, 2014 by dAVe80

[lapal_fan]

Anderson is the uber word removed in the England squad at the minute.  I'd love to punch his ridiculous face.

 

So glad Warwickshire beat his dribbling mess of a team in the 20/20 final!

[Risso]

There seems to be a growing body of evidence that Pietersen was more sinned against than sinner.

[blandy]

There seems to be a growing body of evidence that Pietersen was more sinned against than sinner.

I don't see it like that.

I think it seems like there's 2 different aspects - the allegations of bullying, of treating people badly certainly seem to have a ring of truth to them and are the things that are of concern and need sorting out. Pietersen is fairly clear from the interviews and what i've read that the bullying and so on was directed towards younger players mainly, rather than himself. If his account of the Troot illness thing is right, it reflects particualrly badly on Flower and the others in charge of the players.

 

Then there's the petty stuff - the KP genius twitter, the personal niggles, where he seems to me to be at least as guilty if not more so of behaving like an utter dick. His story on these little things is wrought through with hypocrisy and does no one any favours.

 

It seems he is/was highly disliked in the dressing room and ultimately became intolerable. C'est la vie.

 

The whole thing is like a monumental excercise in point scoring and vendetta, with the odd bit of valid criticism and revelation in amongst it. He comes across as a massive c0ck.

[dAVe80]

Anderson is the uber word removed in the England squad at the minute.  I'd love to punch his ridiculous face.

 

So glad Warwickshire beat his dribbling mess of a team in the 20/20 final!

 

Noooo! You can't say that about Jimmy! Apart from the bit about beating Lancs, obviously.

[Risso]

 

There seems to be a growing body of evidence that Pietersen was more sinned against than sinner.

I don't see it like that.

I think it seems like there's 2 different aspects - the allegations of bullying, of treating people badly certainly seem to have a ring of truth to them and are the things that are of concern and need sorting out. Pietersen is fairly clear from the interviews and what i've read that the bullying and so on was directed towards younger players mainly, rather than himself. If his account of the Troot illness thing is right, it reflects particualrly badly on Flower and the others in charge of the players.

 

Then there's the petty stuff - the KP genius twitter, the personal niggles, where he seems to me to be at least as guilty if not more so of behaving like an utter dick. His story on these little things is wrought through with hypocrisy and does no one any favours.

 

It seems he is/was highly disliked in the dressing room and ultimately became intolerable. C'est la vie.

 

The whole thing is like a monumental excercise in point scoring and vendetta, with the odd bit of valid criticism and revelation in amongst it. He comes across as a massive c0ck.

 

 

 

You can't ban one person for sending text messages to his South African mates, and then turn on a blind eye while other players tweet to an abusive fake Twitter account.  I agree that Pietersen looks to be a bit of a dick, but then he clearly isn't the only one, but he's the only one to be punished for it.  As I said previously, in my eyes Swann comes across as a real twit, and a bully as well.

[Milfner]

Giles has been appointed Lancs coach. 

Quite annoying that, looks like they'll be relevant again 

[snowychap]

There seems to be a growing body of evidence that Pietersen was more sinned against than sinner.

Like blandy, I don't see it that way.

I don't doubt that some of the things that Pietersen has said/claimed are true - I haven't read the extracts from his book, I've just seen the reports on websites - but I very, very much doubt that Pietersen's version of events would hold up as precisely accurate.

His history at Natal and Notts and with other players would suggest that, for all his undoubted brilliance at playing the game (and as an English cricket fan, I applaud him on his tremendous career for England), he might not be the best man to have in a dressing room and that, sooner rather than later, things will go tits up.

[blandy]

 

You can't ban one person for sending text messages to his South African mates, and then turn on a blind eye while other players tweet to an abusive fake Twitter account.  I agree that Pietersen looks to be a bit of a dick, but then he clearly isn't the only one, but he's the only one to be punished for it.  As I said previously, in my eyes Swann comes across as a real twit, and a bully as well.

There's a massive difference between a player slagging off his Captain to the current opposition players, during a game - which is reason enough to drop that player from the team, permanently and a spoof twitter account set up and run by a non player.

Pietersen, when he suspected/believed that the twiiter account was run by a team mate says he was devastated that a team mate would take the mick like that.

Pietersen would, directly abuse fellow team mates and coaches he didn't rate Carberry, James Taylor, Peter Moores, Andy Flower....

massive double standards - someone takes the mick out of him, and he feels let down and cries. He calls a team mate or coach an effing useless Cee and that person should just grow a pair.

How on earth, as well, can anyone sit in a dressing rook with KP now and say anything without wondering if it'll be in his next book?

I'm of a view that coaching and dressing room conversations are best kept entirely private.

KP says he wants to play for England again, yet his cooments towards Alistair Cook or Broad (current test and T20 captains) are of the sort that he would be whining about if they were directed at him.

Like I said, I'm not very keen on the stuffed shirt, jobs for the boys ECB hierarchy, and the bullying stuff added to the list of already obvious stuff - Like Jimmy Anderson's vile sledging, Matt Prior's jelly beans and so are signs that there's both immaturity and flaws in the England Cricket leadership.

Pietersen has cast a little more light on some of that, but mainly he's just settling scores and whining about people who he feels rightly or worngly have slighted him. The big preening popinjay.

[sharkyvilla]

The stupidest thing about all this is they could have selected KP for the World T20 where Flower wasn't coach, Prior and Anderson weren't in the squad I don't think, Swann had retired and Cook wasn't captain. Then come the summer they could have not picked him on the basis of him not being fit enough or wanting to move on. They didn't have a coach and were missing two selectors when they decided to dump him, as a result they had to stick by Cook through thin and thinner even though he is totally inadequate, had to pick a coach and a selector in Moores and Newell almost solely because they would under no circumstances want him back in the team and gave Flower a cushy job in charge of coaching young cricketers when he didn't really bring through any when he was England coach. They have handled it with such extraordinary incompetence it's untrue.

Can you imagine when the ECB were looking for a new coach and trying to explain why they wouldn't be allowed to pick Pietersen in the interview? It's no wonder they ended up going back to someone who failed before.

[Risso]

 

There's a massive difference between a player slagging off his Captain to the current opposition players, during a game - which is reason enough to drop that player from the team, permanently and a spoof twitter account set up and run by a non player.

 

 

A non-player who had, according to Alec Stewart, given the password of the account to the three players I mentioned previously so that they could update it from their mobile phones.  I don't think there's a massive difference in behaviour in that at all, in fact it's possibly worse as it really does point to there being a bullying clique in the team.  And of course, the sending of the text messages was inexcusable, but presumably they were intended to be kept private between mates.  Updating an abusive Twitter account that was fully intended to be read by any cricket fan with a Twitter account is worse in my opinion.

[Avfc96]

English cricket is a real mess and has been for a while. The fact that Flower is now in charge of elite player development or whatever they call it is a joke, but jobs for the boys and all that.

 

 

We have a proven failure as coach who despite failing miserably first time round as England coach, was hailed as the best coach of his generation. Despite the fact that he relegated the side he had coached to Division 1 success the year after and has had no one day success. Giles has a much better record than Moores FFS!

 

Not forgetting the muppets in charge of the ECB, Clarke etc. 

 

Cook aswell, yes fine we beat India in the summer but that was a team that had failed to win an overseas test match for 4 years before they came over here! Then there is the fact that under Cook's leadership we have only won one, one day series since June 2012. Not to mention his below average record in ODI's and his massivley sub-standard captaincy in both formats of the game.

 

Not to mention, KP etc.

[PaulC]

If three England players were involved in that parody twitter account, and they deny it, then yes I think its as bad as what KP did with those texts to South African players. Both are disloyal and caused bad vibes in the dressing room. KP is obviously difficult to get on with but thats what the England management team are there for to manage him. 

 

To me its shows how immature and pampered modern cricketers are. Its school playground stuff isn't it.