KP

fb : -   the ECB is "far from perfect" , you say. So when it takes imperfect decisions (which it has done rather a lot over the past 12 months) is one not entitled to say so without being accused by you of "denigration"?

Your posts are usually full of reason and objectivity. But as soon as Pietersen's name is mentioned you go into an altogether different mode, instructing us to "ignore" everything he says.

I don't accept everything Pietersen says and am certainly not inclined to believe him for the puerile reasons you posit ("because you don't like the ECB" !!??) But yes, a deal of what he says sounds convincing enough to raise serious concerns about the conduct of Flower, Downton and others.

And why would he lie about things that could be easily disproven? For example, he says when he was sacked Downton never gave him a reason and the "disengaged" stuff was fed to the press but never said directly to him. I am inclined to believe that because why would he lie about it? He said on Radio 4 this morning that he never gave the ECB a 'him or me' ultimatum over Peter Moores , but offered to give up the captaincy and work under Moores and a new captain. That's not the kind of story you invent, is it?

And the text messages he quotes verbatim in the book - are they all to be discounted as evidence and we are meant to believe that  his ghost writer made them up for him long after the event?

He is giving his side of the story, of course, and will paint himself in the best possible light. But there is a mass of minuted detail here that in my view he could not have simply 'invented', as you seem to believe when you tell us we must "ignore" him.

As for him being "in a minority of one within the cricket world" that is wishful thinking on your part - or perhaps your parameters of "the cricket world" chime with the pompous definition given by Giles Clarke who earlier this year dismissed  all of us who don't hold a post as an administrator or are employed on a central or county contract  as being "outside cricket".

From my position "outside cricket", I'll refer you to Pietersen's former England captain Michael Vaughan in the Telegraph this morning: "I have said for a long time that Kevin is one of the easiest players that I managed. It is important to speak honestly to him – to give him direction, freedom, and confidence to express his talents. If you did that, he was always behind you."

a somewhat more balanced take than others?


www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/787801.html

No Simon Barnes is not balanced, never has been and nor is he paid to be.  Trust me - I used to be his editor!

Andy Bull is more balanced in The Guardian, saying that everybody comes out badly from the book: "Some of the team’s behaviour, the namecalling, the petty squabbles over dropped catches, the pitiful Twitter spats, would have been embarrassing if it had been going on in the ranks of a school first XI, and yet here it is being committed by Pietersen, Matt Prior, Stuart Broad, and Graeme Swann, some of the finest players in England’s history."

He has no time for Pietersen; in fact he loathes him. But he acknowledges that among all the score settling there is some stuff that cannot be ignored: "In amongst all this bilious, vindictive, guff there are some brilliantly astute points about what really went wrong, with the England team, with Flower’s management, and with English cricket."

He concludes: "Shame on Flower, for making such a mess of the team he helped create, shame on the English players, for being torn apart by such trivial issues, shame on the ECB for sacking its most talented batsman and then briefing against him, shame on Pietersen himself, for this pathetic indulgence of his personal vendettas."

Nothing to see here? I'd say there is plenty and it will reverberate around English cricket for a long time to come.

The dossier is pathetic. No wonder none of it was actually used against him in the hearing with Cook and Downton, who are at least smart enough to have realised how risible the 'charges' were. And yes, the whistling is in there, along with the sin of subversively congratulating Gary Ballance on his Seth Efricen accent.

Just been reading some more extracts from the book. If Jonathan Trott does not come out and deny the story about his bust-up with The Big Cheese (screaming at him "who the f*** do you think you are?"), then do we presume it is true?

I also wonder what the younger players like Robson, Ballance, Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Woakes, Buttler and Chris Jordan make of all this? I hope they are saying "we promise, promise, promise never to get as arrogant, conceited, cliqueish and childish as our so-called elders and betters."

The 'Daily Telegraph' read the dossier from 'Cricinfo' before the link was taken down. Here are some of the highlights.

www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/cricket/kevinpietersen/11147103/Kevin-Pietersen-ECB-document-into-batsmans-behaviour-during-Englands-Ashes-tour-leaked.html

What hasn't been stated, I would suggest, is that a private meeting arranged by the senior players behind Andy Flower's back, where both Pietersen and others vented
their frustration at the ongoing appalling Ashes tour with criticism of Andy Flower's officious management/coaching style - was then allegedly 'sneaked' to Andy Flower
by Matt Prior. And why KP feels so let down by Prior and why he feels so much hurt/upset towards him given KP was the one who initially orchestrated the Flower criticisms.

Reading all this stuff reminds me of the experience of listening to the separate views of a husband and wife who had just gone through an acrimonious divorce. Unless you particularly want to take sides, you have to accept that you'll never know all the facts and that it's usually 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. It may make for good gossip, but hearing them argue after the divorce is a sad, unnecessary and very unedifying experience. 

That is very true, fb. But 'six of one and half a dozen of the other' is a considerable way on from your stance earlier today , which was to tell us all to disrergard anything and everything that Pietersen has said or written.  I'm sure that you are correct and that there is wrong (and probably  not very much right) on both  sides.

Which is why I hope the younger players who have now replaced KP, Swann, Trott and Prior and the coaches who have taken over from the discredited Flower and Giles have resolved that Team England will never again indulge in such juvenile  and destructive behaviour.