KP

Facebook contributors not at all impressed with Graves. Same old ECB, it seems.   

Hmmmmm, well, if he thinks Pietersen misunderstood his comments and if never said that there was a clean slate the time to put things right was last month, not now, so I kind of believe Pietersen on this.

Yet again the ECB has managed to find a way to turn an apalling situation into a catastrophic one.

Graves says he told KP " I didn't make any promises. There were no guarantees that if he chose to exit his IPL contract, play County cricket and score runs he would be selected for England."

But nobody has alleged that Graves gave Pietersen "guarantees that...he would be selected". He told him that he would be considered for selection. And we know that Graves did say that he would be considered, because he not only told Pietersen privately but said it very publicly in an interview with the Daily Telegraph. He told the paper  that  the selectors "can t ignore" Pietersen if he scored runs at county level, and added, "Forget personalities. Selectors pick the best players in form, taking wickets, and scoring runs. That is their job."  Except he forgot to tell Head Boy Strauss.

So today's statement is as devious and deceitful as everything else that led up to it. Graves goes on in the statement about his "integrity". He has proved again today  that he hasn't got a shred of it left.

Lies, damned lies and ECB press releases...can't wat to hear what Piers Morgan has to say when he gets to work forensically dissecting this latest worthless web  of half-truths and deceit.

www.ecb.co.uk/news/articles/ecb-chairman-colin-graves-comments-week

So Graves didn't shoot his mouth off without considering the consequences and Kevin Pietersen was naive to assume that the new Chairman-elect was going to instruct his officials to forget the past?

I suppose it is possible that both of these things are correct. Graves ought to have some idea of how to conduct himself in a senior position under close public scrutiny, and Pietersen is naive and gauche, as well as self-centred and insecure, so he could have thought that telling the world how much he despised the people he played with would be of no consequence. It is also possible that Graves got carried away with his own sense of importance and grandeur, and then found that he had to deal with an organisation less malleable than Yorkshire, and that Pietersen had seen more astutely than he is sometimes given credit for, that he could turn this situation to his very great advantage through adroit use of social media.

What is quite apart from all this ambiguity is that Pietersen has the talent to make the statement he wanted at the time he wanted, by playing an astonishing innings. It was a road, it was "only" Leicestershire, he was dropped 5 times - all true, but it wasn't a worthy 50 or a flawed 100, it was a massive innings that took hard work and vision and determination. And those are the qualities that seemed to be lacking from the way the previous ECB administration had handled relations with him, and there was no counter-demonstration of those qualities from any of the players involved in the drama.

I don't believe Strauss is a villain in this in any way. I think that what we have seen in the last few days was actually a demonstration by Strauss and Harrison that they won't be bullied into carrying out the whims of their Chairman when they have valid grounds for taking another course of action. That  may not satisfy those who want Pietersen back whatever the lessons of the past, and it won't satisfy those who are determined to see Strauss as some sort of po-faced stooge. The reasons for his decision may have a lot to do with Cook's views, and they may also have a lot to do with Strauss's experience of captaining Pietersen over 3 years and putting up with his whims and his media circus until he pushed the envelope a little too far. They may also reflect a genuine wish to concentrate on developing new talent, whatever the cost in jettisoning the old.

Strauss has shown he has not only the courage to make unpoular decisions but the skill to gain support for them and ensure that they are carried out. After the vacillation of the past 18 months, and the often robotic management of the preceding couple of years, and under the Chairmanship of an autocrat who wouldn't accept any contrary views, that is a significant act. Not a popular one but a positive statement.

Well, if I were Cook I would close my Twitter account down and fast because if he got abuse last time that is nothing to what will be coming. Very disappointed in the man.  He is very well paid and frankly should just put up with having to play with people he doesn't like, we all have to work with people we don't particularly care for, and for a fraction of what he gets in his wage packet at the end of the month.   England supporters fork out large sums of money to watch their team and are entitled to see the best eleven available.

A quick perusal of Twitter and the cricketing media shows an ECB in alarming free-fall. And not just from disaffected county chairmen
and England supporters but from outside the country too.

We may expect the Australians to jeer at the KP fiasco or the Windies crowing at beating England in their last Test, but now it is
Ireland who are putting the boot in.

I cannot remember England cricket’s respect and esteem at such a low ebb. As Michael Vaughan tweets: “Can someone just admit the
last 18 months has been a Utter F Up for English Cricket... And let's just start again...”

www.cricketeurope4.net/DATABASE/ARTICLES2015/articles/000033/003365.shtml

For the Irish media to head an article ‘Tell England To Take a Hike’ is a damming statement. We are a laughing stock right now with
no way out but further freefall into an abyss of excruciating humiliation.

At present, there is no solution except KP returning to the England fold or the team hammering the Kiwis followed by winning the Ashes,
yet both are about as likely as Piers Morgan kowtowing to the ECB.

This is disasterville with capitals KP and there is no Kent Clark to save the day. Not so much 'a clean slate' but 'a stale mate'. One sees no
end result but Team England self-imploding along with the ECB.

Then what?

"They've united people against them who don't even want KP back in the England side! Now that really is a serious achievement."

They have haven't they, like me. I've only read a report on what Graves has come out with but Jesus, you're right, it's got worse. Talk about towing the line. I'm beginning to believe that there is nothing they can do to regain respect now - nothing. Shambolic, and I'm done with it, I'm taking my England posters down.