Kevin Pietersen

[b217bravo]

What do forumites think?
My view, a prodigous talent but clearly an over inflated ego & very disruptive
in the dressing room.
geoff

[Bob Singleton]

I think the only person that has a problem with KP is Strauss.

KP is certainly self-assured (and he has the stats to back that up), but I've never thought he had an "over inflated ego". He knows how good he is, but on the field he's never given the impression of being egotistical. Maverick? Certainly. Game-changer? Absolutely. Naive? At times, stupidly so. Over-inflated ego? Sorry, but I don't buy that interpretation.

If anyone has an over-inflated ego, it may actually be Strauss himself. Reasonable Test cricketer and reasonable captain who was fortunate enough to have several "game changing" players around him (one of which was KP)... and now this only just above average test player thinks he can run English cricket? Now that's what I call an ego!

[Essex Lad]

Well apart from the fact that every team Pietersen has played for, he has fallen out with. So I would think that makes him the problem.

[Arginald Valleywater]

Piers Morgan summed KP up perfectly. Dumbslog Millionaire. Talented yes but you would always have an undercurrent of mistrust.

[Zorro]

My understanding is it is Cook who is the problem. Cook gave the ultimatum me or him.

[Milk Tray Man]

If he were a chocolate bar, he would eat himself.

[David Johnson]

Pietersen gives the impression of being pretty good at having fallouts with his team mates and the management.

What no one has doubted, as far as I am aware. that he is one of the most talented batsmen ever to represent this country. This suggests to me that it is more than a storm in a teacup.

As that well known cricket commentator, Graeme Norton said "'Reading the book it strikes me that team sport is not for you.'

[Essex Lad]

David Johnson wrote:

> Pietersen gives the impression of being pretty good at having
> fallouts with his team mates and the management.

Yes every where he has played ? in South Africa and here.

>
> What no one has doubted, as far as I am aware. that he is one
> of the most talented batsmen ever to represent this country.
> This suggests to me that it is more than a storm in a teacup.

He has scored the most runs for England. The selectors obviously don't believe that that in itself is worthy of inclusion.

>
> As that well known cricket commentator, Graham Norton said
> "'Reading the book it strikes me that team sport is not for
> you.'

Cricket isn't really a team sport in the way football or rugby is. It's more of a number of singular contests between a batsman and a bowler joined together.

[David Johnson]

"Cricket isn't really a team sport in the way football or rugby is. It's more of a number of singular contests between a batsman and a bowler joined together".

Agreed, but it is still a team sport in which allegedly sending texts to the opposition e.g. South Africa slagging off your captain and retiring/not retiring from variously one day matches, five day tests etc. doesn't go down very well.

[Essex Lad]

No, true. I don't think there's any alleging involved. KP admitted sending the texts and by all accounts Strauss slagged him off as well calling him a c***. Not sure if that was supposed to be cock or cunt.

I think also where KP or his supporters have a point is that he stayed and played all the Tests against Australia whereas Swann and Trott both left early and Trott got a recall although his performances showed he should never have been brought back.

The point is ? should KP, a disruptive influence on the dressing room, be brought back or is team harmony and almost certain defeat in the Ashes preferable?