A temporary post. Anyone with suggestions for an updated glossary, please put them below. If you’d like to add a definition, then go ahead. Try to avoid being libellous. This lot are funny when we stick to the published facts!
I’ll be working on that during the day as some light relief.
C’mon Jason Roy!
What else could I call this post? While my good friend and colleague on here, Vian, aka thelegglance, held the fort so spectacularly this morning, I sat in my room, here in New Jersey, at 6 in the morning wondering what the hell was going on. I couldn’t shout or swear at the screen because didn’t want to wake the beloved or mother-in-law up. I was interested in seeing how the new dawn of Harrison and Strauss looked, and what new ideas they had going forward. I also wondered how prepared and how briefed they were for the KP onslaught.
I sort of owe Stephen Brenkley an apology. Compared to this, Paul Downton and Peter Moores handled their questioning with aplomb last year. I’ve just seen George tweet “Bring Back Downton” and I’m inclined to believe it might not be worse. Downton could have been told to wind his neck in, eat humble pie and go with a selection policy based on merit. If he didn’t like it, he knew where the door was. The ECB needed a scapegoat after the World Cup, Downton inserted mouth and put his foot in it, and eh voila, we had our token sacrifice. But by doing this early enough, one man would still have a vital say in the replacement.
Someone said today, I think it was Harrison, it may have been Strauss, that the decision to axe KP, although he’s not banned (they think they are so effing clever, don’t they) was unanimous at board level, with the names mentioned being Strauss, Harrison, Graves and Giles Clarke. There you have it. That man Clarke. There was absolutely no way he’d countenance a return to the fold for Pietersen, an uppity man who dared challenge his monstrous ego. No way would Clarke allow this. Whether he should have been mentioned is a point for debate. After all. wasn’t he being shunted overseas, out of the way, not to get involved and let Graves run the show. Or is he the ultimate back seat driver? Instead we’ve got into this position. Downton’s early termination by ECB standards may have been part of the plan. They needed a scapegoat and no-one was going to bemoan his departure. By doing so swiftly enough the current Chairman was going to get involved in the selection process. There have been whispers in the press that there was no way he would go quietly. So, how better to construct a false competition, with the illusion of rivals for the post, and then, when one dropped out and one was ignored, we arrived at Strauss. A man with well known views on Kevin Pietersen, made clear in a book (funny how that worked, eh) and on air. Hey, that’s all right, he took time away from the game to do all that. Every man and his dog knew he was biding time before getting back into cricket admin. I think I’ve spent 500 words saying I don’t believe Giles Clarke is going to let go at all. We’ll see.
So to today, and Andrew Strauss. Having woken up appallingly early, I managed to get a Sky Sports News feed, and given no-one else was using much internet at 6am, I got an unbuffered stream. My first surprise was that we weren’t shown the press conference, a la Downton, but that there would be interviews first. OK. I didn’t hold out much hope. Tim Abraham comes off as a good guy, but he’s not Pat Murphy. Now, I’ll have to trust to memory and Vian’s recall here, but the first words out were something along the lines of “we need to have an honest, open discussion about Kevin Pietersen.” I sighed. I couldn’t swear. I sighed. By implication this means you have not been honest in the past about it, and that you’ve not been open at all. You’ve had all night to prepare for this question and you come out with startingly obvious platitudes that those of us who have followed this for 16 months now will see straight through. Andrew, old bean, you threw a fit over text messages and you called him a c—. You are not some impartial, detached honest broker. Don’t hold yourself up to be one.
To his credit, this early gambit didn’t hold, and he didn’t even try. What followed was bilge. Some believe it is those dastardly lawyers, clamming everything up again. That pesky employment law, eh? But what we had was the key element of trust, and Strauss couldn’t make up his mind if the key factor was at corporate level (a unanimous view of the board) or his own (we’ve had serious trust issues and I don’t trust him). There’s the first error, a massive one. He put his own personal beef above English cricket and he never went into detail why. Not that I heard. When even Paul Newman says we needed to read between the lines, you know this was not working. Only a couple of usual pillocks – Selfey, Lovejoy Jr – went hurrah! Here’s his excerpt from the book: 
So a grudge, eh? Yet again, when it comes to the crunch, Strauss never went into this with an open mind. But we knew this from what he had said before. But many came to the same conclusion – what the hell is he on about? This bloke (KP) was just completing his 355 not out – a special score – and Strauss is still going on about a beef three years ago? What was he talking about? What the hell did it matter? How many runs did “trust” score? Oh, I’ve seen those who liken sports teams to corporations say that you can’t do what he did and return. Pietersen would be the one with the problem, not them. It would be Pietersen ostracised in a dressing room, not them. If KP could go in there and take it, then so should they.
No. I came to a pretty swift thought. This is about Alastair Cook. Again. Cook doesn’t want him back, he never goes into detail why this should be the case, and Cook rules this roost. Once again, another senior management figure gives this man carte blanche. Denials do nothing to convince me otherwise.
Strauss gave it the big one over sacking Moores. Bravo. He wasn’t tactically adept enough at the international level. Well, that’s nice. I suppose all those press boys who fell over themselves last year have recanted their sins on both Moores and the man who appointed him (sound of crickets). There then came all the stuff that Andrew Miller, in his excellent Cricinfo piece, called the “white noise of corporate bullshit”. If you’ve read Driving Ambition, and I have, the bit I most recall was Strauss’ devotion to managment text books, team bonding exercises and military disciplines. People here will know how much I absolutely adore all of that. We try to escape this sort of claptrap in watching sports. I’ll bet Lionel Messi has never read a management text book in his life. I’ll bet Ronaldo doesn’t do team bonding. It’s drivel. We are playing sports, not planning a mission to invade Afghanistan, or to deliver a leveraged buy out. But here they were all trotted out, the most vacuous of them all being the “long-term strategy”.
We had the shock that he was keeping Eoin Morgan as captain of the ODI team – hey, while we’ve just sacked the coach, let’s kick him even harder by saying the World Cup was ALL his fault by keeping the captain (who just happens to be a Middlesex player, but I wouldn’t be that cheap to draw a conclusion based on that). Then there was the promotion of Joe Root to vice-captain, which, who knows, may have been based on the legendary leaked performance on some leadership exercise by Ian Bell to demote him back to the ranks. Then there was the woolly philosophy of separate ODI and Test teams, but under one coach. There would be more of a distinction but we’ll flog a head coach to death to do it. Well, good luck with that.
And that was pretty much it. A trust issue where there was no-one to blame, and I didn’t go into the semantics of the following old shite where he said KP had no future, but he absolutely wasn’t banned. Some contrition for the manner of Moores dismissal, but a dismissal of Moores himself (and how that contrasts with his book which when KP and Moores were having their spat, Strauss almost indicated that “it was nothing to do with me guv”. 
He certainly worked with him there, didn’t he? (Driving Ambiton, by Andrew Strauss is available from normal sources if you wish to read the full book). Tom Harrison came on and did a speak-your-Downton regime. First of all, his credibility is shot because he looks like Tim Westwood. Secondly, when challenged on the KP front, he then did what all good charlatans do when caught on a weak issue for them, and said, I don’t want to talk about the past, it’s about the future, and then went on about excitement and long-term strategies. I lost the will. He’s dead to me. No more than a Downton in a sharp suit, but with more of an attitude.
Of course, since then, the main copy has been provided by the Pietersen sacking (for that’s what it is, don’t bullshit us) and what KP had or had not been told.
Like last night, I’ll divide the post in to two, and have a real pop in the second part. Because I want my dinner, and I’ve topped 1500 words. I’ll hand it over to thelegglance to take things up.
Also, read The Full Toss (James and Maxie), and Andrew Miller on cricinfo (which also has a link to Switch Hit).
UPDATE – Not really been at it today, even though I seem to have devoted a full day of my holiday for this nonsense. I’m likely going to take a couple of days away from the blog (don’t hold me to it) and I know Vian has something up his sleeve for tomorrow. I feel a bit of my spirit is broken, to be honest. I’ve felt this way before. I get over it, and get on with it. It wasn’t helped by listening to Tuffers and Vaughan, to be honest. If we showed one tenth of the bile for Cook or Strauss that is doled out to Pietersen, we’d be annihilated. We don’t come anywhere near close.
I’m aware not everyone is going to be able to get to a TV or radio today, so the idea is to post and update as it happens. Lots of refreshing of the page will be required I’m afraid, we’re not at BBC levels of automatic updates just yet!
10:38 – Sky have just had Atherton and Hussain previewing it, with Atherton describing the ECB as having led Pietersen up the garden path.
10:49 – how’s your blood pressure?
10:50 – we’ve had a chorus of former players and captains absolutely outraged so far. To me it seems the rage is far higher than it was with the original sacking. Though Ed Smith of course believes social media and the public are not just different things, but on a Venn diagram don’t actually coincide at all.
10:53 – of course Strauss will be talking about some other items today as well, and we’re supposedly due to hear from Colin Graves, who will have a lot to answer for. Let’s be honest, it’s one subject that’s going to dominate.
11:02 – here we go
11:03 – Strauss “massive trust issue between Kevin and I”
11:04 – “not part of our plans for this summer, can’t say about the future”
11:04 – “can’t have a situation where there’s no trust. If there’s a way to build trust let’s look at it”
11:05 – “trust is absolutely imperative. It’s a board decision. My job now is to look to the future”
11:06 – Note that he throws it all on Pietersen. No mention that the ECB ought to do something about it.
11:08 – wonder if calling him a bad name live on air has something to do with that trust
11:09 – full backing for Alastair Cook for this summer.
11:10 – will look at the selection structure.
11:11 – Joe Root to be vice captain of the Test team.
11:11 – “far more separation between the Test and One Day teams”
11:12 – Kevin Pietersen is now on 347*
11:13 – blah, blah, blah. This is not a terribly impressive performance.
11:13 – and that is that. The press conference is to come.
11:13 – oops missed out that Jason Gillespie is in the running for England coach, be interesting to see if he wants it.
11:17 – quite remarkable that Strauss actually comes out and confirms that the problem with Pietersen is a personal issue.
11:18 – they have a bloody cheek talking about trust. No one trusts the ECB. Oh and Pietersen passes 350.
11:22 – Harrison speaks now. Says it’s an ECB position and that Colin Graves agrees.
11:23 – Harrison comes up with the usual guff about moving forward. Ignores the question about Pietersen being led up the garden path.
11:25 – And Surrey are all out. Pietersen selfishly red inks a 355*
Ha, you have to be kidding Strauss!
11:49 Not sure if we’ll get to see coverage of the press conference or not. I’ll try and keep abreast of it.
Looks like we won’t get to see that though. So it may be Twitter updates as they come in.
12:18 – apparently Sky will be running an interview with Strauss from Atherton and Hussain shortly.
12:43 – Hussain telling Strauss trust goes both ways.
12:46 – this is a whole load of blather, it really is.
12:47 – it’s quite extraordinary how Strauss talks about trust and that asking him to be an advisor is part of that, yet ignores the trust issue of the chairman telling Pietersen that if he scores runs he can’t be ignored.
12:53 – Well that interview told us nothing at all. If there was one thing I thought Strauss might to better, it was to actually come up with a rationale for exclusion. He failed. Miserably.
It’s quite astonishing actually – the disdain from professional sportsmen is almost universal.
Bob Willis: “I don’t often feel sorry for Kevin Pietersen but having been told by the chairman-elect to go and score runs in the County Championship if he wants to get back in the England side, Kevin’s been sent on a wild goose chase.
It’s another case of the ECB shooting themselves in the foot. After the appalling way the Peter Moores sacking was handled, that he was the last to know, I think this is another faux pas by the ECB and they need to get their act together.”
13:09 – seems that’s more or less it for the moment. Doubtless more will come out across the day and I’ll update as and when. But for now, hope it was of some use to you all.
The Downfall thing has been done many a time. But OK, this one is funny
13:33 – first response from the written press to their press conference:
Ryan Harris chimes in: “I know that Strauss and him probably don’t get on, (but) I’m not going to believe it until we get over there and they pick their squad. He’s just peeled off a triple-hundred. If he keeps going on and playing for Surrey – he may quit now – but if he keeps going and scoring hundred after hundred there’s going to be a lot of pressure to pick him. Although it has been said by the new cricket director, I’m not going to believe it until we play five Tests and Kevin Pietersen doesn’t play. If he keeps scoring runs the way he is it’s going to be very hard not to pick him.”
Alec Stewart speaks:
And boy is he not happy. He’s not happy at all.
15:39 – I’ve just seen Dominic Cork try and say we don’t know what Colin Graves said. Well Dominic, here you go – irrespective of what was said privately, this was entirely public and is a direct quote:
“It is very simple. What happened in the past is history and there is no point talking about it, I was deputy chairman when the decision was made [to sack Pietersen] and I supported it so there is no point pulling that to bits. But if he wants to play for England then he has to play for a county. That is his decision.
“If he does that and then comes out and scores a lot of runs they can’t ignore him I would have thought but that is up to him. You can’t pick someone when he is not playing.”
“Forget personalities. Selectors pick the best players in form, taking wickets and scoring runs. That is their job.”
16:10 – Interesting interview with Alec Stewart on Sky right now, directly addressing the point about what he would have done had he got the DC job. He said he would want to pick from the best players available, and if that included Pietersen so be it. His implication was fairly obvious that that wasn’t acceptable to the ECB.
Let’s think about that for a second. A prospective Director of Cricket isn’t considered because he wants to pick the best players available. Let’s think about that again. Jesus.
18:03 – Kevin Pietersen article on the Daily Telegraph is imminent…
19:01 – Perhaps not so imminent. I’m out for an unavoidable birthday tonight, so this will be it from me for now. No doubt when the article is published there’ll be a whole lot more to come, and I’ll come back to it in the morning with a longer piece. Comments are of course open as ever. It’s the first time we’ve tried a live blog on events across a day, so let us know if (even given the subject matter) it’s been useful for you, and we can do it again. We could even do it for a Test match perhaps!
Read Part 1 below – a bit of a diary of the day up to the TMS tweet. Now I’ll really get stuck into this nonsense.
Let’s take ourselves back to the end of the day’s play. The reaction to the 326 that I saw was mostly of the “wow” kind. A few churls who wouldn’t have cared if it was Marshall and Holding in their pomp at each end had a pop, but they looked rather stupid. One moron of the month, who Clive rightly called a troll said “one innings in four years” which not only questioned his recognition of how relatively rare 300s are, but also his numeric ability given KP’s knocks since 2011 – you know, the golden trio even his worst critics can’t help bu admire. I’m used to this utter nonsense now. It’s tedious, it’s dull, a bit like this blog to non-believers.
So to the TMS Tweet.
Seems pretty unequivocal. Of course it’s a leak, or whatever you want to call it, because a leak isn’t a leak if it isn’t a leak or something. Some people got rather uppity about all that over the weekend (no, not you LB), as if we were doubting their journalistic abilities. But this looked like a leak to me, this one… if it looks like a leak, smell lies a leak, it probably is one. So the reaction was one of fury.
I absolutely one hundred percent stick behind this one. I’m deadly serious. I’m not over-reacting. This blog is built on these foundations. Call it as you see it on DAY ONE. I called for Downton’s dismissal the day after he said something utterly stupid and now I call this.
I am seriously not impressed by Tom Harrison. Oh, I know, he wouldn’t give a toss if he read it, and why should he? He’s a highly paid executive and I’m just a mere bilious inadequate with a small platform and loyal support. But this was another one we were told was made of the right stuff. A former county pro, who went into media rights management and is now in charge of something or other at the ECB.
This is him.
So far, he’s sacked Downton, which was a fair move but bloody hell, he took his time over it as he presided over a costs and structure review – and boy does Harrison like a structure. Then he presided over the absolute clusterf*ck that was the dismissal of Moores. In the interim he employed head-hunters to come up with Andrew Strauss for a new post called Director, (and that comma says so much) England Cricket (or whatever – I cannot be bothered with this muppetry) and now, that is coming home to roost. They had it all planned. Andrew Strauss would be unveiled, they’d say a teary farewell to Peter Moores, and then new Management Structure England would move forward to the New Zealand series and the Ashes.
But, as we know, the information on Moores leaked. How it leaked we do not know, because, well we’ve done that already above. So a decent bloke (I think I’ve been consistent in that) was humiliated in public by this organisation. You’d think they’d feel a little chastened, a little wounded, maybe a touch humble. But I’m not sensing humility from Harrison. I’m sensing someone who is a little too cock-sure and seems to think he’s wielding a big stick. Just a hunch, and we’ll see how it plays out. Not been too wrong on them so far.
So, with plans completely blown out of the water, a contingent strategy took place, and the announcements were made on Saturday. Vian’s post below captures my thoughts brilliantly. My thanks for such a really good post on the matter. After this nonsense we were advised there would be a press conference today (Monday) or tomorrow (Tuesday). No-one was quite sure. There seemed to be utter confusion, while at the same time trying to exude some sort of decisive authority. This smacked of Captain Mainwaring shouting “I’m In Charge” as his bunch of old timers rambled off here and there.
Now, they knew the press conference, on Tuesday, was always going to throw up the KP question. At this stage (Sunday) it was an easy case to answer. Let him make some runs, he’s not in our plans at the moment, and it’s difficult to see him in our plans going forward. But he has to make runs. Even this has not, it appeared, satisfied our captain. I’ve been told a ton of times how nice a guy Cook is, but he doesn’t seem to act like it it. Either he’s being horribly misinterpreted here, or there’s something I’m missing, but every time someone seems to broach a rapprochement with KP, there’s a column saying Cook’s angry at someone for it, being Aggers (reportedly) over his TMS stint at the World Cup, or Graves for that message during the World Cup that got KP to sign for Surrey and play county cricket. It seems that Team England is run for the benefit of Team Cook. We’ve been down this road on this blog before. It really appears to me a him or me situation, a back me or sack me. In Downton, Cook had an implacable supporter. In Flower, behind the scenes wielding whatever power, he had someone in his camp if it means keeping KP at bay. And in Strauss, he has a man who KP fell out with, who didn’t want him to return to the team after Textgate, and who called him a c*** live on TV. I think, as they say in the legal world, these lot have “previous”.
I’ve been saying all along they’ve been leading him up the garden path. This is not an organisation steeped in an ability to admit mistakes. It refuses to believe it can ever be wrong on any matter, or admit it’s core policies are misguided or prone to scrutiny. This is a body that went into a major deal with a subsequently committed felon, and you’d gather from our governing bodies attitude to its culpability in the terms of “ooops, shucks, well, ok, never mind.” Collier, the architect supposedly of this kept his job for a mere six years after that. Clarke has had to be prised out of office with the promise of a lovely old international jolly. Hugh Morris presided over the Moore/Pietersen nonsense with all the authority of Captain Peacock in Are You Being Served, while throughout this period we had leaks/good journalism all over the shop. That an organisation is supposed to be anal about leaks lets so much information out, such as KP’s report, the dodgy dossier and the sacking of Moores II, is preposterous. They are a sick joke, with the emphasis on sick. It’s bloody ironic that the new chairman is called Graves. This is a place where common sense goes to die. Where good chaps preside over the serfs, and don’t you dare question authority.
Above all, this is an organisation that employed Paul Downton in a position of responsibility. You remember him. All aplomb and good impressions. He may have been a lovely guy, aren’t they all, but he was out of his depth from day one. He hid. When he spoke, we knew why he hid. But we are told that things will be different now. While Downton was removed from the game for a couple of decades, the new Director, England Cricket, will be more in touch. More in tune with the modern game.
The list of those who would be in for the job underwhelmed. While Michael Vaughan was an inspirational captain, he’s a twit online. Alec Stewart had experience of being a Team Director, but that didn’t count a jot, and really, were we enthused by his candidacy. Then there was Andrew Strauss. The last week has seen people falling over each other to tell us how tough he is, how single minded, how focused he was. How he’d do the best for English cricket. He is the ideal man to take us forward, a great captain, a great leader of men. The evidence? He got rid of Moores (or did he. I’ve heard from some that he was gone well before the announcement of Strauss….and I’m talking a couple of weeks). But if Strauss sacking Moores adds to the narrative, well, what’s the harm in that? Of course, we’d heard from Michael Vaughan that Moores wasn’t going to be sacked, and that he’d been told that the ECB were not going to take KP back. Then Strauss is their man, and Moores goes. It’s laughable. So Strauss has a big decision under his belt, so it seems.
And it is abundantly clear, if I’m guessing, that the plan was to talk to KP before the presser to sort that out. They know that the question is going to come up, and I said how I thought they might answer it in part 1. But it’s easy to speak to KP with a forthright view if he’s not made runs. Now he has. 326 un-ignorable runs. 326 stabs into the heart of the ECB with their high-fallutin’ principles and beliefs. 326 jabs at their pompous approach, their holier than thou, high and mighty, we are in charge balloon of infallibility. 326 reasons why they are wrong to adopt a policy of selection that excludes someone because someone inferior doesn’t get on with him. 326 reasons why this country is a bag of shite when it comes to creating and maintaining great English sporting teams. It’s too much about getting along, and not enough about getting runs.
So when faced with the utter shit-storm the initial twitter post from TMS unleashed, with people going absolutely puce with rage (me included), there was a very quick back-track via Nick Hoult in the Telegraph. Lawrence Booth has reported much the same thing. But this is them trying to be clever and the ECB-watching public out there are not going to be fooled one iota. Their policy, if not explicit, but as close as you can get to it, will be KP over their dead bodies. Even now these control freak, superiority complex muppets will be concocting something that is designed to fool the public tomorrow. You won’t. Without the simple mantra that the team will be selected on merit, as it should be, anything else is claptrap. We won’t get fooled for building for 2019, because we built for this World Cup and blew it up in a tantrum last year. Setting long-distant dates, talking about long-term strategies is management bullshit. You going to give all the punters who paid all that cash for the Ashes some money back as you ain’t giving it your all? Like hell. It’s talking down to us. Some, in their bilious hatred for KP will accept this bag of nonsense. More shame them.
So, on the off chance that Strauss will surprise us, which I doubt, I’ll hold all my fire. But here’s the Dmitri Declaration. If I hear anything other than the England cricket team will be selected on merit, and no player is excluded, and if he is playing well and is deemed to be the best available at that time, regardless of age, then that player will be selected. But as this is a team that selected Tredwell over Rashid, Trott over Lyth and is busy flogging Anderson and Broad to a standstill, it’s all a smokescreen.
To the final insult, the last in a long line. The Graves comment that KP’s not available for selection as he’s not playing county cricket and not scoring runs. There have been denials that a deal has ever been struck, that this was a mere innocent comment and nothing had changed. KP is many things, not all good, but he’s not stupid. He returned because he felt there was a genuine chance of a rapprochement. He felt Graves would take none of the previous regimes nonsense and set them straight. To that end he negotiated an exit to his IPL contract, and gave up a decent, not huge, sum of money, and does not take a salary from Surrey. If there were “no chance” of a recall, then they should have said so, there and then. They didn’t. They hoped he would fail, would not score sufficient runs. That he would wither and die, and sod off to the CPL later in the summer. KP’s not that gullible that he wouldn’t keep that in his back pocket.
Now he makes 326, now we see them close ranks. Now we see them all but shut it off in perpetuity. That’s reprehensible, and let’s see them get their way out of this. A good number of cricket lovers are enraged at this apparant duplicity. That this isn’t just getting shot of a trouble-maker but exacting a bitter, cruel revenge. I am a KP fan. This man gave me some of the greatest thrills of my cricketing life. I would have loved to have been there today. I’m desperately hoping he’ll be there at Beckenham in a fortnight’s time, but that looks unlikely. I’m not saying he’s an angel, but he’s among the best we have. But we don’t play the game that way.
From the outside this is an organisation not representing its core supporters. This is an organisation that leaks. This is an organisation that thinks it is too clever by half. This is an organisation that is rotten to the core, steeped in some misty-eyed half-baked concoction of superiority complex elitism and management philosophy claptrap, that only they can judge and only they can decide. This is an organisation that couldn’t organise a piss up in brewery, a sacking on the Apprentice, or honest broking in a room full of spivs. It is diseased, it is malevolent and it has to go. Yes. We need a new organisation running the game, free of all this rubbish, these agenda, this structure. There’s another structure for you, Tom.
Sure, I’m outside cricket. I’ve never felt more outside than I do now. Judging by the reactions of many today, so do they. It’s an incredibly sad day when our own organisation rushes to dampen down the enthusiasm felt by many when a player who gave great service to England, who played many amazing innings, who had us glued to our screens, buying our tickets, makes a thrilling riposte and does what he thought he need to do, only to be told within a matter of hours, it seems, to foxtrot oscar. Someone put cricket on the back pages today, and instead of welcoming it, our beloved guardian authority hated it. They’ve got it all right, ain’t they….
Let’s be pleasantly surprised tomorrow, eh? Anyone betting on it?
For some context, and a piece that sums up my views on KP, try this.
Where on earth do you start on a day like this? Let’s set the scene a little. As some of you know, I’m on holiday (vacation out here) in a place called Cape May, New Jersey. It isn’t the Jersey of Springsteen, with the New York overspill or the refineries and factories. It isn’t the Jersey Shore of TV infamy, nor is it Atlantic City, where I’ve been today, but a quiet, sleepy seaside town, with one side on the Atlantic Ocean and the other on the Delaware Bay. I’m 200 yards from the sea. It’s lovely.
So you’ll understand that I wasn’t up with the lark this morning, and rather enjoying a lie-in. I awoke, at around 2pm I think, UK time to be greeted with a number of comments on the blog remarking that KP had made a century. “What a lovely start to the day” I thought, and then chuckled to myself that those haters would be tripping over themselves to diminish it. Also, taking the game situation into context, Surrey really needed those runs, and needed more. What did I do though? I tweeted
Lawrence Booth got back to me (he didn’t know how the day would end up)
I responded…
I calmed down a little, and had a little walk, and came back to see the Pietersen machine rolling along, allied to a tail that didn’t give it away. 150 was up…. and I was busy working out what he needed to make to get the average over 100 if he got out (188). When he passed that, the next target was 200, and so that was passed. By now the joy was let forth. I never believed he would get back to smashing any attack around for these sort of scores. A century or two would be ignored, because, well, anyone gets them. But a double is not easily ignored – as Sky Sports pundits and hosts kept saying “if KP churns out a double hundred or two, then what…” As I left the house with a spring in my step and a little joy in my heart, I got on my international sim phone and followed the score up the Garden State Parkway. 220, 240, 255 (past his best score), 270, 290 and then….300.
Now, I don’t care what standard you play, but 300 is nothing to be trifled with. It is not to be ignored. If this were a player who had shown no aptitude for test cricket, had tried and failed, or was a promising youngster, maybe there’s an excuse. That isn’t what we are talking about here. We are talking about a test cricketer of proven ability, who not that long ago was making very decent centuries (anyone forget his Old Trafford hundred less than two years ago?) and had answered his critics by coming back to first class county cricket, a format that he doesn’t particularly cherish, and he’s smashed it everywhere. 326 not out. Ignore that.
I was so happy, I should have popped into the Golden Nugget and put money on 24.
So, I’m wandering around the shops and left the international phone in the car. Treated myself to a couple of things, and then went back to the car. As we’re crossing Little Egg Harbour, I saw the TMS Tweet.
And I went ballistic. Absolutely fucking ballistic.
You may have seen my twitter outpourings, but if not, just go on there and look for @DmitriOld . The ECB had chosen this moment to announce that they were not picking KP for England again. Ever. This would not happen. Not in a blue moon. No chance. Cut off without a prayer. Brought hope forward by intimating he had a chance, and when he stuffed it back at them, they said “no, sorry”.
Make no mistake, for all the weasel words we’ve heard since, where there has been some suppsoed back-tracking, we’ll get a restatement of Andrew Strauss’s position tomorrow (the one we read about weeks ago, and why we so opposed his appointment now) which will be all about building teams for 2019 blah blah blah and that KP will be 39 by then. If you fall for that old pony, you’ll fall for anything. They are blocking his way, no matter what. There will always be a reason not to pick him. If he followed this 300+ up with another monster score in his next outing, it won’t matter to these idiots, for idiots are what they are that they would rule out a monster talent returning to monster form. It IS one innings, and it IS just part of the road back. But this lot want to block it for what? Personal reasons? If he’s the best batsman, in form, in the country, you play him. It really isn’t that complicated. Let me effing well repeat that. IT REALLY ISN’T THAT COMPLICATED.
This is the ECB in a nutshell. Cricket is meant to be exciting, it is meant to be fun to watch, it is meant to thrill as well as enthrall, to appreciate graft and genius in all its forms. It’s not a bloody game won by management consultants, self-help books on army drills and team-building nonsense. It’s won by talent, it’s won by attitude, it’s won by seizing the moment, not ticking some Belbin Analysis or a team leader assignment on a marines assault course. This team we have now can be as together as it likes, but it collapsed like wet cardboard at Headingley last summer after an abject display by its captain. It hooked its way to a loss after another abject bowling display at Lord’s v India, and despite a turnaround which has been praised as if we’d turned into the Invincibles, we went to the West Indies and collapsed in a heap in Barbados. They are so together, they collapse in a heap in synch. I’m not saying KP makes you immune to that, but it also doesn’t mean that these batsmen are set in stone, no matter how much they say they are. If I could have a pound for all the times someone says to me “who would you drop?” then it would have paid for my shopping today. That’s not the way to look at it. It is “who are the best batsmen in the country?” If the answer is KP, then Ian Bell, Gary Ballance or Joe Root will just have to get over it.
Which is all I want. Pick our best team. Pick our best players.
Watching some of the jealous muppets on Twitter is sickening. Honestly, they act like the Katie Hopkins of the sporting world. Muppet Pringle, a man who got the sack for not reading the runes it appears, had this absolute gem, which in its brevity sums up why English team sports are absolutely Donald Ducked.
Principles over PR? What is he on about? Principles…. oh yes, they’ve worked so far. We backed a captain who took two years to make a ton, and has little or no tactical acumen over and above chuck it to Anderson and Broad and hope it works. We’ve had principles that Cook is sacrosanct in the test arena, and for a while in the ODI arena, and will work to the detriment of English cricket and hamper preparation for major events by backing him until it’s too late. Yeah, principles. Teams with principles are usually rigid, inflexible, and bound to them. Principles means authority rules, so shut the hell up.
Meanwhile, making 326 not out in a county game, I suppose, is PR. Jesus wept. Oh, and there’s a dig about tweeters too. Genius.
But it seems that our ECB would rather follow this “play the game chaps” approach, rather than countenance that they might have made an error. In part 2, which I’ll write later, I’ll go on to all that. And the unprecedented reaction I saw on Twitter after that TMS tweet. This is a fire that just will not go out. The ECB, instead of dampening it down, seem to want to put petrol on it.
I’ll get something up later. For now stick KP comments below.
So I picked a good few days at the end of last week to be snowed under…
Dmitri has highlighted a few things about the peculiarities of the ECB actions, and as the days go by it seems they have learned absolutely nothing.
Firstly the sacking of Moores has handled with a complete lack of respect. Whether he should have been appointed for a second stint as England coach is one thing, but he was. Dumping him after a year is an open admission they got it completely wrong, just as they did with Downton, though with fewer excuses given Moores had done the job before. Naturally, there’s been no admission from the ECB of that, and naturally they managed to make a mess of it.
On Friday Moores took the England side to play Ireland in Dublin, and the morning papers were full of articles about his impending sacking. The television coverage consisted of commentators openly talking about it while the camera focused on him. Moores retained his dignity after his first period in office, refusing to criticise the ECB or complain about his treatment, indeed his conduct would have been part of the reason that they considered his return. He deserved far better than the public humiliation of leading the team to Ireland and having his removal an item of discussion while the camera focused in on him, just as he deserved far better than being the subject of numerous press articles that morning.
Moores may not have been the right person to be England coach, but that doesn’t make it remotely acceptable for someone in the ECB to have briefed the press about it all before the official announcement. The journalists are doing their jobs, there’s no criticism of them. There is criticism of the ECB for failing to treat an employee with the respect due to them. One must hope that Moores had already been advised of what was to happen before then, because anything else goes off the scale of dreadful treatment. It is to Moores’ immense credit if so that he still did his job that day.
The point here is that you don’t have to approve of Moores’ appointment or the job he was doing to be be aghast at his treatment. This is a decent man doing his best for the England team. Whether or not his best was good enough is entirely beside the point. Treating people like commodities to be discarded without recourse to their feelings has been a pattern of behaviour within the ECB for quite some time, and it seems clear that nothing has changed. Doubtless they will wonder what all the fuss is about; after all, the bilious inadequates weren’t happy about Moores’ appointment in the first place, so surely they got what they wanted and should pipe down and move on. No. Moores deserves an apology, and a public one. It is unacceptable in the extreme to treat him with such contempt.
Of course, the appointment of Strauss has led to numerous articles about what this means for Kevin Pietersen. Like others, it is intensely amusing to read the usual suspects who lament that Pietersen dares to be an issue write extensively about him while demanding that everyone else move on. Like a dog returns to his vomit so fools repeat their folly. But there is an important point here – if Pietersen is once again going to be told that he won’t be selected for England, then the ECB have told him lies. He came back into county cricket because he was led to believe there was an outside chance of him winning back his place in the England side. He gave up his IPL contract, and he donated his salary with Surrey to charity. He would not have done so if told he could forget any possibility of selection. Leave aside the practical matter of whether it is remotely sustainable should England have a poor summer, a restatement of his banishment is at odds with the indications they have given him.
Pietersen has a limited number of years left in the game. Leading him up the garden path and messing around with the remainder of his career would be a spiteful, vindictive thing to do.
And this is where the treatment of Moores and the treatment of Pietersen coincide. Not for the first time, the ECB have behaved with nothing but contempt for others. The defenders of them try to argue that the dreadful disaffected people are the problem, and that nothing the ECB could ever do would satisfy them. They can’t even treat their own employees or players with respect, it is hardly surprising that they don’t care about anyone else.
Let’s be abundantly clear. The treatment of Moores was loathsome. If they do what has been trailed in the press to Pietersen, that is repugnant. There are no justifications, no weasel words that make it more palatable. Simply an organisation that cannot even abide by standards of common decency towards other human beings.
Which one makes more sense to you?
The last year has been a period of transition and rebuilding in which Peter has nurtured new talent, developed new players and laid the foundations for the new coaching structure to build on.
“This decision has been made as we focus on the future and our need to build the right approach and deliver success over the next five years within a new performance structure.”
or this…
La lasta jaro estis periodo de transiro kaj rekonstruo en kiu Peter nutriĝas nova talento , evoluigis novajn ludantojn kaj fondis por la nova trejnisto strukturo por konstrui sur .
‘ Tiu decido estis farita kiel ni enfokusigi sur la estonteco kaj nia bezono por konstrui la dekstra alproksimiĝo kaj savos sukceson dum la venontaj kvin jaroj ene de nova agado strukturo .
Because it doesn’t make any sense to me. I weep when I see this sort of thing. The implication is that Moores has done a good job developing talent that they needed after the loss of the Ashes and the key players who walked, were injured/ill or just chucked out for reasons not explained, but now it needs to be left to the big boys, like Andrew, who knows best. The only way this could get better is if they re-appoint Andy Flower as coach.
More on all this later. It’s a lovely sunny day by the Shore and we have visitors coming so probably won’t be around much more today.
UPDATE – Vaughan’s piece in the Telegraph, if true, is astonishing – http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/international/england/11594878/ECBs-handling-of-Peter-Moores-sacking-was-disgraceful.html
I had talks with the ECB about the director of cricket job the day after the Grenada Test when the team had won and there was a vibe about England’s Test cricket. It was clear to me that they would not be removing Peter from his job and I felt I could not be the boss of someone I did not rate.
It would have created too much pressure around the team and too much focus would have been on that relationship leading into a huge Ashes series.
There was also the Kevin Pietersen situation. That was always going to be hard to manage. I personally wouldn’t want to rule him out of playing for England again if he scores runs for Surrey and a vacancy opens up in the middle order. If his game is good enough why would you not want to take someone like that to a World Twenty20 next March? But the ECB still seem to be a little bit reluctant to bring him back and I feel that the Pietersen issue is still going to be a talking point through the summer. So it was not the right time for me and I was never offered it anyway.
But then the situation changed. England lost in Barbados and Peter’s job was on the line again. It is a warning of how quickly things can move on in sport.
Where do you start with that? I have not mentioned KP that much recently but this indicates there is still no desire AT ALL for KP, meaning he has been led up the garden path as I thought. How one match (Barbados) changed everything with a body that talks about “long-term” strategy and building structures. How Moores was staying, then going. In a blink of an eye.
I mean, it’s enough to inspire zealotry in anyone, isn’t it?
So it has been confirmed by the usual type of press release where those doing the appointing try to persuade us that this has been an exhuastive and thorough process, where after enormous efforts, they’ve got the right man.
Like this one:
“Paul’s experience of a World Cup final, Ashes success, six County Championship wins and 58 international appearances for England provides a wealth of cricket experience.
“His background in law when coupled with his experience in the City provides the unique set of skills which is required to lead and manage the England Cricket Department’s £100m budget over the next four years.”
Still make me chuckle. The “outstanding candidate indeed”.
Today it has been announced, not with the hoopla of a press conference that you’d associate a major announcement like this to have given the high profile nature of the job (Downton’s post wasn’t making news like this one is), but via a press release, that Andrew Strauss is now the Director of Cricket. Let’s take the release in full first.
“Andrew Strauss has been appointed Director, England Cricket. In this new high-performance role for the England & WalesCricket Board [ECB] he will be responsible for the long-term strategy of the England men’s cricket team and for developing the right coaching and management structure to support it.
“The appointment follows a month-long formal recruitment process led by ECB chief executive Tom Harrison. Strauss, who led England to two Ashes wins and took his team to the top of the ICC world Test rankings, reports to the chief executive.
“Commenting on the appointment, Harrison said: ‘Andrew’s breadth of ideas, his passion for England cricket and his proven leadership skills shone out. He was an exceptional England captain, is an authoritative voice on the modern game and has a wealth of experience building successful teams.
“‘Andrew’s also widely respected across the sporting landscape. We’re delighted he’s joining us at the ECB as we set out to create a new strategy for the game.’
“In this new role Strauss will oversee the England’s senior men’s team including their performance and development programmes and the selection process and player pathway. The England Head Coach will report directly to him.”
There’s more wooliness than a sheep farm, more platitudes than a showbiz awards show, and more guff than listening to the reporters on the TMS slot (sorry chaps! needed something). First up we have “long-term strategy”.
This is the refuge of people who have no idea how to make a success. Long-term strategy and development of the right structures of management etc. A little bit of me died. What does this mean? What is long-term, and what structures are we on about when for the England cricket team, it seems to be in place now (or are we talking about Andrew cutting down/increasing support staff). How is Strauss going to get star players out of the ether if none exist?
The second paragraph mentions a month long formal process to reach the decision. The job plan wasn’t made public, the interviews seem to consist of Michael Vaughan having a chat and saying that the job wasn’t for him, and Andrew Strauss saying it was. Perhaps the ECB might enlighten us poor plebs as to what this process was, who else might have been approached, and what they might think of the role? Did they speak to Alec Stewart for instance, or did they approach Martyn Moxon? Instead, it seems to this bilious inadequate that we’ve designed a job in the England team called “Being Andrew Strauss”.
Now, I’m not impressed at all by Tom Harrison so far. I’m sure he doesn’t even have the likes of us on his radar. The next few comments he makes are straight out of the management appointment bullshit lexicon that drives me up the wall. The “he’s really great and we’re so lucky to have him” bollocks that sets my antennae off, and makes me immediately suspicious.
Andrew’s breadth of ideas, his passion for England cricket and his proven leadership skills shone out. He was an exceptional England captain, is an authoritative voice on the modern game and has a wealth of experience building successful teams.
Seriously, what are these ideas? He reads management and armed forces guides and implements some of their ideas. This worked well because one of his best batsmen wandered a mile off the reservation under him, and while it’s too easy to say it was all that man’s fault, you had to be blind not to see the cliques emerging, especially the Swann Anderson nexus which got to include Broad. So count me sceptical about his record on that. He captained England very well when we got on top and scored big runs.
As for the last bit, please spare me. An authoritative voice? Really. What’s the most memorable thing he has said since he left the England set-up? If that’s authoritative, we’re in for a fun time. I’m also not sure that the last bit was bang-on, but the players mostly seemed to like him. But once the team came off the rails, it did so with a bang, so he had experience of seeing one fall apart too.
“‘Andrew’s also widely respected across the sporting landscape. We’re delighted he’s joining us at the ECB as we set out to create a new strategy for the game.’
Pure management-speak bollocks. Set out to create a new strategy for the game. Seriously, what does that mean? When I have a work objective set it has to be SMART. My eyes roll at that. Time specific? Measurable? Specific? No, woolly management guff you can kick down the road because extraneous factors will always get in the way. Oh yes, and the first bit. I’m sure he’s widely respected across the sporting landscape, but funny how the bilious inadequates think he’s the “safe” choice, the “company” man, the assured diplomat and just the sort of family they’d like to see a DOC come from.
“In this new role Strauss will oversee the England’s senior men’s team including their performance and development programmes and the selection process and player pathway. The England Head Coach will report directly to him.”
Does this mean he becomes a selector, or replaces Whitaker? This is the interesting part because it was this role that Downton seemed to take that alarmed us all. Also, how do you oversee the performance if you’re not the coach, and how is he supposed to influence it?
I genuinely don’t think they know what they want Andrew Strauss to do except be Andrew Strauss. We all have our views on him, and mine are on the slightly unfavourable but not downright hostile. I see him as a reasonably set in his ways, typical establishment manager, with adherence to major principles and too keen a take on text book management tomes. If he’s allowed to kick the can down the road, he is going to, because he’s already known as “bob the Builder” on here for his insistence on taking long-term approaches and building for the future, when the team he led was as conservative and for the time as you could get. It wasn’t exactly known for developing talent. It also was a team that had its way of winning. The infamous “bowling dry” which worked if you made masses of runs, which we did.
Of course, there are major elephants in the room. KP will always loom. Calling him a you know what will always be remembered, and the biggest of them all, his attitude to Cook and probably more importantly Flower loom. I think he sees kindred spirits in those two, and if that’s the case, I can’t be positive. We need to be released from the shackles of the past, not be beholden to it.
These will be outstanding times indeed.
I wrote this last night. I didn’t enjoy writing it and have had thoughts about whether to publish it. Quite a lot of the time I try to be humorous when having a pop at a journalist, but in this case, I couldn’t find the humour. Is it our fault?
So read on…..bilious inadequates.
There are advantages and disadvantages of being 3500 miles away when stories break. I’m a bit more removed from the sources of the stories than if in the UK, but also I’m not at work and I do find this sort of thing quite relaxing, believe it or not. But this Moores story is one of the oddest in an odd 16 months or so. Once again a major story is put out in advance of the agreements being signed or deeds being worked upon, and the ECB’s media strategy, whatever it is, has gone up in smoke. The new man in the role, name not known at present, hasn’t had a much better time than his predecessor.
This is not an ECB leak. We’ve been assured this by all and sundry, except, interestingly, Jonathan Agnew who appears to be jumping to the conclusion that we have. BOC has been informed that this was not an ECB leak, but will not be told who has spoken. Fair enough. But you could be forgiven for thinking “so what” if they did tell us. What difference would it make? Luke Sutton had been tweeting away yesterday about how bloody unfair it all was, and I’m wondering out loud about who might be the source, but I am only guessing. This isn’t right. It can’t be right. The ECB may be anal about leaks, but they seem pretty hopeless in stopping them.
Which brings me to dear old Mike. He’s been on form today. Let’s go through a couple of his golden greats. I like this one:
Too many people here do not understand how journalism works. And too many look for conspiracy where there is none. And do you seriously think we would give up the sources of our stories? Get real, as Farage once said.
This is getting out of hand. You ain’t the victim here, Michael, the paying cricketing public are. You get to sit around, write and watch games as a job. Many of us would love that role. You seem to think it better to sit behind your keyboard admonishing the great unwashed for being reasonably on form when it comes to the way the governing body has acted for the last 18 months. To say “too many people here do not understand how journalism works” is hilarious. You don’t have the faintest idea how social media and blogs work, as judged by your dismissive attitude to anyone disagreeing with you. I fundamentally disagree with a number of journalists, but have a decent online relationship with a few, because, to a degree, I get how journalism works. What I don’t get is how what you does works? When we see Moores shabbily treated like this, what are we supposed to do? Say “oh, well done ECB. Another bang up job done.” Even if the ECB did not leak, THEY ARE SACKING HIM AND THEREFORE ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT INFORMATION. You made a decision and decided to tell certain people of that decision and no doubt stressed its confidential nature. If that person then went on to leak it, you’d have to question your judgement. Or am I being too harsh here?
Which brings me on to part two of Selvey’s beauty. “Too many look for conspiracy when there is none.” Nothing drives me, and I suspect those who comment on here in record numbers each month, more mad than this “I know what is going on but I’m not tellling you.” Then, to compound it, they make less than subtle digs at your sanity for thinking there might be more to things than meet the eye.
The ECB are firing a Head Coach, which while I’m not completely against the decision, is a shocking development and the way it has been “released” to the public, by what appears on the face of it to be a synchronised piece in three newspapers at 12 noon, screams out for someone to try to connect the dots! “Too many see a conspiracy” when clearly someone has coordinated this piece of information’s release (that’s how it looks). So we’ll question the timing, the synchronisation and the content. This isn’t the 19th century where we just take the view of our Lords and Masters. We try to investigate, try to get to the bottom of this and theorise. Because, at heart, we are inquisitive and want to know what is going on. To dismiss this as the work of “conspiracy theorists”, which is a dog whistle for “nutters” – a charge thrown at us regularly, and dismissed just as easily as the accusations of the morons throwing it – is insulting your readership. I’m so sorry about that Mr Selvey Sir (I tug my forelock).
In the third part, I don’t expect you to give up your sources, because I understand to a degree how journalism works. I’ve learned a lot talking to some journalists about it, funnily enough. I share as much as I can with my readership, because I don’t want to betray trusts. I’ve never been asked not to say something (I don’t think so) but recognise that balance needs to be struck. However, once my information is confirmed I let people know what I know. Don’t tell me to get real (because I believe this stuff is aimed at the likes of me and my readership). You get real. Work out why the people BTL have turned against you in large numbers in a way not seen anywhere else. Work out why Ali Martin, Nick Hoult, Lawrence Booth, Scyld Berry, Dean Wilson and even John Etheridge get better social media reactions than you. Because they don’t treat their readership like the shit on their shoes. Don’t go hiding behing a ridiculous article by Ed Smith (he’s so clever, just ask him) to prove that those who disagree with you are just a voluble minority (who can be ignored), when that minority are pretty adept at reading between the lines, and don’t like this secret squirrel bs. The secret, silent majority may pay their ticket prices and pipe down, but then who is to say that they aren’t thinking “this is a bit of a shambles, isn’t it?” You can’t keep assuming their silence means consent.
Peter Moores, although he’s not a favourite on here, has never ever had his commitment questioned. He’s tried his hardest, and although I think he should have gone after the World Cup, has tried to keep this team on the road. The “antis” should not ever question that. It was the ECB who gave him the hospital pass, it was the ECB who “bigged him up”, it was the ECB trumpeting every success, backed up by a largely compliant press who were always primed to provide six inches of mitigation if we just held on for a couple of balls more. Lots of us had doubts, ongoing doubts, but we were told to pipe down about them because we beat India in a test series. We may have had those doubts, but I’m not here to bury Moores. I’m here because I get angry when I see someone treated very, very badly by authority or whoever it was who leaked this. Moores is another one spat out by this machine. Excuse me if I theorise over what happened. You get real.
I see journalism. I see a victim. I’ll theorise.
Contrast this with Ali Martin’s reponse to wctt:
And you’d been complimentary about my work early on too. Ok, I have seen both your comments today and while they stung a wee bit, no one is more aware that my writing style is not a patch on some of my illustrious colleagues than myself. What I would say is that while they turn out the beautiful flowing prose, I work very hard to source cricket news stories and share it with the readership as soon as I can turn it around. Not every piece can be Cardus – it’s news, ultimately, and that is my brief. When it comes to great writers, the Guardian had an abundance.
I respect Ali’s work a lot. He gets “us” to a degree and if I’m not putting words into his mouth, doesn’t think a great way to carry on is to piss off his customer base. Which includes those who disagree and those who agree.
Unlike this.
Good night all. Bilious inadequates. Remember, those silent and who don’t comment on blogs or the newspapers think that too.
Being Outside Cricket 