I don’t like singling out one BTL piece of stupidity, because it’s rife with it. But one who holds himself up as some sort of higher being wrote this.
Sit down before you read it. Then the name of the title of this post…
“Given his record I’m not sure he needs to outscore the rest in the CC’
Yes he does or we may as well pick Gower and Botham. If we don’t it undermines all the decent honest loyal and hardworking cricketers in the Championship. He gets preferential treatment based on his (distant) past.”
Note the introduction of other tenets that come into play in this individual’s selection methodology.
- Total volume of runs (persuasive)
- Being Decent
- Being Honest
- Being Loyal
- Being Hardworking
- Playing In The Championship
What does not matter
- International pedigree
- A player of great innings
- Runs in a T20 tournament (mentioned in a previous post)
8181 runs, 20 odd hundreds, one in an Ashes series just prior to the disaster, and most runs in a disastrous tour, irrelevant. Distant past? Look what he did last time India came over here, and how he took them to the cleaners. He didn’t get that chance to feather his stats and shut this nonsense up. But the beloved skipper did, didn’t he? Didn’t he do really, really well….
Being loyal. Being Hardworking. Being Honest. Being Decent. These things score runs, these things take wickets (by the way, no-one, but no-one denies KP is a hardworker.)
We’re fucked with people like this and their attitudes. That bloke may be 34 (not ages of some great players when they packed it in – more than 34) but he has scaled heights that others can only dream of. Let’s put it this way, if Wayne Rooney broke his leg today, and was out for a year, and was in his early 30s, do you think he wouldn’t be picked for England more or less as soon as he is fit? Give KP two or three games, and if he makes decent runs, stick him in the team. If he doesn’t, leave him out. He’s proved he’s international class. You’re not playing some loyal, decent, club man from the middle of the table instead of him. Well not if you don’t want the sack, or ridicule.
To compare KP to two people over 50 with no playing career for the best part of two decades is crap. Absolute weapons grade crap.
Good grief.
Later on we get this:
He did not play one match winning innings in the Ashes, batted at number 4 when the shine is off the ball and was marginally better in Australia ( and much worse than Bell in England.). In the Big Bash his strike rate was average in a competition shorn of Australia’s best bowlers and any overseas international bowlers – but perhaps he didn’t tweet that.
But as you say he needs to be scoring lots of Div 1 runs to be considered and if they are to consider getting him back it must be on that basis.
The man’s a joke. Arron tears that apart, so I didn’t have to (misses out the 4th innings at The Oval when his shot making nearly pulled off a run chase, but no doubt if he had done that, it would have been slagged off due to Michael Clarke’s wonderful captaincy.
You really can’t get KP on his past form. His injury? Yes. But form, no. So don’t try it with selectivity, with prejudice and sprinkle a fair helping of nonsense.
Being Outside Cricket 
LDL, please point me as to where to find this, I can’t be arsed to hunt down the ‘Strauss word’
LikeLike
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/48913957
Further on they need to be Division 1 runs. Shifting the goalposts, moving them along. So clever they think.
LikeLike
Thanks LDL, I’ve just replied to it
LikeLike
Now I’d like to tell him to go West but I have been completely disabled by Guardian for daring to ask Mr Selvey questions. You couldn’t make it up could you. I’ve written twice now to the Guardian and told them to remove my name as I no long wish to be associated in any way with their Selvey playtext bra or any other kind support Selvey may need in his old age!!! They are not responding.
If KP goes to Surrey – which the pundits seem to think he will – me and old man will be well pleased.
Interesting that the usual suspects said that no club would want KP playing for them and I hear there were 5 clubs touting for his services. If he chooses Surrey of course they can’t accuse of doing it for the money – given they are in the Second league. Although they will of course.
I see Jardineyes is at it as usual. Weezer back trying to wind me up but I am not playing – really annoys him. Lots of posters who know a great deal sharpening their knives and giving them hell. I love it when a plan comes together!
As Rooto said on Elephant thread it isn’t about KP playing in the Ashes – although you would think he’d already been signed up by some from Twitterland – but it is about their being a level playing field. If there is such a thing of course!!!
As for being honest and loyal well I should like to see Downton being honest and loyal and of course Darth Vader himself – now where is he going all shy and silent; Maybe he can’t get out of that costume that me Lord saw him in! LOL. These people make me sick to death.
Hopefully me and old man will see KP playing for Surrey – as long as my full time caring job allows! If he gets the runs then ECB dare not pick him aye? Wouldn’t that be the final revenge on the old ECB lags and liars. It was quite lovely seeing Bob Willis lost for words on Sky at the thought of KP with an England Shirt on again. Just superb moment.
Thanks Me Lord for chance just to air me ignorance. Cheers chaps. You are all so brilliant.
LikeLike
Annie – just get yourself a new email address and register at the Guardian again – I have a few I have used in the past when my posting got the better of me!
I mean, it isn’t really worth it just to comment on Selvey, but there are probably other things you like to comment on . . . 😉
LikeLike
Something I didn’t mention:
He made one hundred and three fifties in the home Ashes series. That’s a good five-match series for most. Strauss was man of the series with the same 100/50 split in 2009, for instance. Only Bell managed more scores over fifty in 2013, and no other player matched Pietersen’s four. Only three Australians made at least four scores over fifty during the bloody whitewash, for goodness sake.
Recent historical context for England in England: one and three is the same split Pietersen (and Flintoff) had in 2005; better than any English batsman in 2001; the same as Thorpe (our top batsman) in 1997; better than all bar Gooch and Atherton in 1993; better than all bar Smith in 1989. And the last three of those series had six Tests.
I dare say people like wctt have no concept of how exceptional Bell’s series was (most runs in a five-match home Ashes series since Denis Compton, with a 15-run lead over everyone on average), or of how exceptional the collective batting stats were in 2010/11.
LikeLike
I used to engage wctt in what I thought was reasoned argument BTL – but have stopped since he argued that Pietersen should have been dropped forever not in 2012 (I’d disagree with that but I could see some rationale behind it) but in 2009. That’s how far off the scale he is. I remember him not too long ago posting a hilarious piece about what Colin Graves would do to Pietersen if he was in charge (it culminated in a firing squad I think – or possibly hanging, drawing and quartering). I suspect his current stridency is the result of a lurking fear that Graves is possibly not going to play the role wctt had ascribed to him.
Sorry to bring in politics briefly but Andrew Rawnsley today argues that some voters are impregnable to rational argument because their vote is a statement of identity. It seems to me that wctt’s posts are in the same mould. Pietersen has become a totem of everything wctt loathes about the modern world (mostly disrespect for authority – that is the bit about Pietersen that really gets him). Rational argument is futile. Bemusement and poking fun are worth it occasionally but mostly best ignore him. (Politics and cod-psychology in paragraph. Argh! It won’t happen again)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Did wctt used to be Mike Daniels? They seem to be cut from the same superiority-complex cloth . . . and I haven’t seen MD for a while.
LikeLike
No, Mike Daniels’s writing style is different and he’s very coaching-focused. I suspect even he is now finding it difficult to defend the cricket establishment.
LikeLike
James Pattinson, to name but one player in the BBL, not international class? That is news to me. It may be news to some England batsmen as well, if an injury to the Aussie pacers happens (which is not extremely unlikely). How many club bowlers average 27 in Tests? Scratch that: How many English bowlers average 27 in Tests?
As for needing Div 1 runs / wickets: That did not stop Moeen getting picked. Did not stop Cook from skippering. And I am pretty sure it won’t stop Buttler from getting picked either, even though Prior is probably back from injury now?
Does not stop Anderson from getting picked (wicketwise), despite being on a Moores-less yoyo team.
LikeLike
I won’t check the stats but trust to memory. Ramps once averaged over 100 I think in Division 2. A number in the media had a real old go about cheap runs etc. So Ramps went into Division 1 and did exactly the same.
So it’s bollox. To use a technical term.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Was it not the case that Marcus Trescothick was not scoring the volume of runs the so called experts now demand from KP when he came into the England side?
I seem to remember Duncan Fletcher saw in him something he thought would translate into International cricket. A hunch? A gut feeling maybe? But it paid off. I don’t think Gower was a great county cricket scorer either. Once you have tasted the big time it’s difficult to go back to playing in front of 1 man and his dog.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@Mark
“Was it not the case that Marcus Trescothick was not scoring the volume of runs the so called experts now demand from KP when he came into the England side?”
It was true of a number of particularly good players – Trescothick and Vaughan amongst them – that their domestic records were pretty ordinary and they were picked on character, temperament, and ability rather than county performances. The flip side, of course (and I’m sorry for giving them another whipping in this context) is Hick, Ramps, and Crawley; all the runs a god could hope to score but never quite the international success you would have predicted. Ramps must have the most polarized record of any batsman in history.
LikeLike
@THA which is kind of why I think the premise of KP needs runs in CC to warrant an England recall is at best some sort of cricket purgatory. It really doesn’t prove anything other than a repent.
It’s a bit dubious in my eyes, but them getting the benefit of the doubt has long sailed until I see otherwise.
LikeLike
“Pietersen has become a totem of everything wctt loathes about the modern world (mostly disrespect for authority ”
This a million times over! And not just wctt, but all of them.
The biggest crime KP committed in my view was to question authority. England is a very hierarchal nation. (We still have a Royal family with Kings and Queens and Princes and princess for gawds sake.) Politicians may like to say we are now a classless society but it’s still there. And some might say has regressed in recent years. Even in acting the roles are going to privately educated actors these days. The ECB is drenched in the English class system. And many English supporters are very conservative both with a large and small C.
KP dared to rock the boat. England doesn’t like boat rockers. And if you do rock the boat you better be doing it for the people at the top, not yourself. Also there was a lot of jealousy to KP from certain players. He was earning big money, and he was flaunting it. Another no no in polite English society.
It’s not that the English don’t like winners. But winners must, above all else swear alligence to the system.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is far more present in England than in any European country (House of Lords being just one example). And it does not help that England achieved its greatest glories in spite of its social stratification; if you fall back on the successes of the past, it is quite likely to end up as a sort of justification for relatively rigid social structures. Napoleon took care of that in Europe.
This is also relevant to cricket, since culture obviously influences how the game is run in England, how teams are coached, and what eccentricities are tolerated and not tolerated. This conservatism is definitely holding English cricket back – it is pretty hard to innovate (which is extremely important in limited overs cricket), when the powers that be are highly suspicious of change.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s also very true in tennis. The 3 best tennis players The UK have produced in the last 20 years. Greg Rusedski (brought up in Canada and learned his tennis skills there) Tim Henman (born into a tennis family with a tennis court in his back garden) and Andy Murray ( who’s mother is a tennis coach)
The LTA (tennis version of ECB) has produced diddly squat. Despite millions being thrown at them from Wimbledon.
The Establishment hated Fred Perry all those years ago. Treated him like shit. Because he wouldn’t play the amateur game. He needed the money so he went pro.
LikeLike
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/11473474/Paul-Downton-must-provide-answers-to-keep-his-job-running-the-England-team.html
Hehe…
LikeLike
Lovely photo in the article. Though there isn’t anything new.
LikeLike
I said on the earlier thread – wctt is a retired schoolteacher trying to turn the comment threads into replacements for his classroom. Really, it’s best not to even read his posts, because you can’t discuss or argue with him and he’s usually wrong.
Re the respect for authority thing – surely this goes hand in hand with cricket becoming the preserve of private schools? That’s what private schools are for, to reinforce the class system. Cook is a perfect example of someone from a non-posh background who has been schooled both to aspire to the life of the farming gentry and to make all the right noises to please his bosses at work.
But also, don’t forget that the kind of hierarchy that’s existed in England cricket recently hasn’t always been there. We’ve had a toxic combination of an unprecedentedly autocratic chairman and an obsessively controlling coach who’s been preceded and followed by an anxious and hyperactive coach. It’s not a question of getting ideas above your station, they don’t like anyone with ideas at all. I reckon this lot would have sacked Mike Brearley for being too clever by half.
LikeLike
“Re the respect for authority thing – surely this goes hand in hand with cricket becoming the preserve of private schools? That’s what private schools are for, to reinforce the class system.”
Must say I disagree with you on this. Without getting in to the rights and wrongs of independent schools, one thing they’re particularly good at – and at which the state system fails quite badly – is making children independent. Independent in thought, independent in terms of their self confidence and self-belief. One reason, I suspect, is they have the freedom to teach/encourage people to think, rather than being stuck with a rigid curriculum and a fear of OFSTED.
Comes across in the workplace, in job interviews, even in sports teams, all the time. Perhaps counter-intuitively, state pupils are more often slaves to conformity and respecters of authority, privately educated pupils much more likely to break taboos and traditions, be radical, have the confidence not to need approval from authority.
Generalizations, of course, but there’s more than a little truth to it.
LikeLike
Hm, not sure about that, THA. I agree about imparting self-confidence, which of course also often comes from having successful parents. But I’d say that private schools are generally much better at preparing pupils for success in life, and that may well include understanding how to conform to expectations of a certain type that will do well in a certain sphere.
LikeLike
Out of interest, did you go to an independent school (and which one, if it’s not too personal)?
I ask because I often find people’s impressions of what independent schools are like are often quite different from the reality.
An interesting comparison might be the army; order and conformity are very important, but something they value and are very good at inculcating is independent thought and action (channeled in the right direction).
The two may seem mutually exclusive but it’s quite possible they’re very closely related.
Anyway, this is not much to do with cricket really.
LikeLike
Ex-players do not necessarily make the best commentators or journalists, in general, and certainly when they have to assess people they have shared dressing rooms with for many years.
I obviously don’t know my UK cricket journalism history. But was it not the case that in the past the journalists were not successful past players by and large? It seems that there are more ex-England captains commenting on the games (on Sky), than non-ex-England captains.
Willis, Gower, Atherton, Nasser, Botham, Vaughan, Strauss are just the obvious ones that spring to mind. That can’t be healthy, also with regards to the formation of public opinion on cricket related matters. Which invariably leads to issues relating to impartiality.
No journalist goes to all the games, no matter where in the world. Which means that they have to rely on television to get some of the games, and that means, with the yapping of whomever is employed by Sky for the series. Which in turn will influence perceptions. It happens to regular posters BTL, so why would we simply assume that the likes of Selvey and such are wholly immune to that? (I am not implying it is a conscious thing)
LikeLike
Dobell on Pietersen comeback:
http://goo.gl/8Cbsza
LikeLike
Now read the one about Downton.
LikeLike
He’s toast.
LikeLike
I can’t be bothered to engage with WCTT, even to mock him. Zom4 and the like are just the same. Zealots. Jardineeyes I find even worse, in some respects, because he pretends (may even believe) he’s open minded and impartial, whilst displaying just as much mouth-frothing hatred for Pietersen (and he really hates people disagreeing with him).
They’re already turning KP’s qualification to play in to one of those voting tests for black voters in the southern states; ridiculous questions with no right answers, only wrong ones. Whatever test or marker KP passes will only lead to another, and another. Runs has turned in to CC runs. CC runs has turned in to 1st div CC runs. That will become ‘the better teams’ in the 1st Div. Hundreds will suddenly become irrelevant ‘You really need a double ton to be out of the ordinary in the CC’. The double ton will be ‘at number 4, after the shine’s come off the ball’..eventually he’ll require KP to open the batting, at the WACA, against Malcolm Marshall and Keith Miller, wearing a blindfold and using a stick of celery for a bat, whilst reciting the national anthem, backwards and in Sanscrit, and without moving his lips..and riding a unicorn.
“See, the ECB called his bluff – gave him every opportunity and he failed, just as I said he would”
LikeLike
That last scenario you described? He’d still get a century 🙂
LikeLike
I find it interesting how some of the Guardian BTL contrarians have constructed a world in which the sentiment BTL there is overwhelmingly, irrationally and hysterically pro-Pietersen, and therefore it’s up to them, and them alone, to step up and wield the sword of truth and be the sole gallant defenders of rationality.
They appear blind to the fact that the sentiment isn’t overwhelmingly pro-KP, isn’t hysterically anything, and the only somewhat irrational defence going on is poets’ persistent confusion of Ian Bell with St Sebastian.
And their version of the truth seems to be that Pietersen was never a very good cricketer anyway, is a complete sociopath and is now nearly dead.
Nowt so queer as folks…
LikeLike
I see we’ve got a new one on the Telegraph who dropped in a claim to have played international sport. It does make me laugh how the ones who hate Pietersen above all else and are blind to everything else are the ones who froth at the mouth and then accuse anyone questioning what happened as being rabid.
LikeLike
Which one’s that? There is an occasional poster who says he played international cricket for England (in 80s I think), is this another poster?
LikeLike
Who was that? I’ve not paid much attention the last week or two. Did drop in yesterday and saw some chap (Paul Weighell, or something?) come out with some extraordinarily tortured bollocks about Pietersen being inconsistent, and that rather than having a chap who may score an all-time great double ton and follows it up with a duck, you’re much better off with a reliable chap who just knocks up an unassuming 30 every game without fail.
His reasoning – if one can call it that – would have excluded Don Bradman, of course, but kept Mark Ramprakash in the side for at least 70 Tests..
LikeLike
Ichall on the article about Pietersen saying he’d play under Moores. It’s got all the classics – getting more and more hysterical then accusing everyone else of the same.
The claim to have played international sport is a beauty.
LikeLike
Ah, I see him. More of the ‘you poor saps don’t understand sport the way we pros do, texting top secret information to the opposition, disruptive influence, not very good any more – played a couple of all right innings a long time ago, good ethos needed, selfish, not team player, unreliable, traitor’ bingo.
He may drown in his own smugness.
And Jardineseyes really is a pointless turd.
LikeLike
Looks like a fun conversation…
Tbh, he may well have played international sports. Doesn’t mean he knows what he’s talking about though.
LikeLike
Anyone who tries to claim that on an anonymous forum I have little time for. Our host will tell you over a beer that I have first hand knowledge of certain people but I would never dream of trying to use that in an online argument. It’s meaningless because you have no idea if I’m telling the truth.
LikeLike
Name-dropping really is a frightful habit. Stephen Fry told me that at Elton John’s Christmas party.
LikeLike
Oh is that where you went when you blew me out. Tosser.
LikeLike
Gower’s a spectacularly bad example. He didn’t give a fig about county cricket thus undermining his argument completely.
LikeLike