Pietersen at it again.

[Seagull over Canaryland]

Didn't tha Aussies call K.P. Figjam? As in " Fxxx im good, just ask me

Quite. KP's reputation preceded him from South Africa into English County Cricket. KP did not exactly play the team game at Nottinghamshire, so the Aussies were very quick to seize on his ego and look to wind him (and his England team mates) up over it.

It is one thing for a maverick and supremely talented sportsperson like KP to be temperamental and high maintenance but if over indulged the downside is often collateral damage around the dressing room. It needs firm and balanced management, however at some point in his England career that balance was lost.

The team is expected to tolerate KP's traits - but it seems he cannot accept there will be other strong characters in the squad who will not be gagged and would inevitably give him plenty of stick in return. I'm sure that very strong characters like Prior, Anderson, Swann and Broad are not squeaky clean either. As in other walks of life if you set yourself up as something special then you also become a target - it's test of mental toughness that your team mates will continually prod at. Don't dish it out - if you cannot then take it in return.

KP claims that he still wants to be part of the England set up but his mate Darren Gough pointed out that KP has only made himself available for T20 for Surrey, whereas his rivals were racking up reasonable runs across all forms of cricket. So how did KP expect to impress the selectors with some proper batting form? I think it would be a huge own goal for England to take KP back, too many bridges have been burned. Anyway I suggest there is little chance of that while Peter Moores is at the helm.

This latest spat just seems a cynical stunt to publicise KP's book. I look forward to hearing the counterpoint from Matt Prior etc.

 

[Trevor]

I would always take Matty Prior's side over Pietersen. Pietersen was despised his South African peers, made very few friends at Nottinghamshire, left Hampshire because it wasn't close enough to his Chelsea home and has tried to get numerous coaches sacked.

I may be biased but Matty Prior always seems delighted to play for Sussex and before getting in the Test team appeared to be really supportive of the lower batting order when with them and a real team player in the field.

Also when he has turned out for Sussex (while an England regular) he was always happy to play as a batsman only.

 

[vegster]

I would always take Matty Prior's side over Pietersen. Pietersen was despised his South African peers, made very few friends at Nottinghamshire, left Hampshire because it wasn't close enough to his Chelsea home and has tried to get numerous coaches sacked.

I may be biased but Matty Prior always seems delighted to play for Sussex and before getting in the Test team appeared to be really supportive of the lower batting order when with them and a real team player in the field.

Also when he has turned out for Sussex (while an England regular) he was always happy to play as a batsman only.

The irony is that KP has accused him of being a " Disruptive influence in the dressing room ", I suppose demanding the current coach gets the sack, and texting details of how to get your own captain ( Strauss ) out isn't disruptive ?

 

[Black Rod]

Having heard a fair bit of what goes on in and around Sussex from a relatively well placed person, it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear the stuff that Pietersen is coming out with about Prior being true. Which is a shame really as KP is clearly a complete ****

 

[Hyperion]

Why do the news media fall for it?

Look at me and my controversy. I want to sell a book.

 

[stripeyshark]

I agree with Strauss' words on this subject.

 

[Billy the Fish]

Why do the news media fall for it?

Look at me and my controversy. I want to sell a book.

Look at us, buy our newspaper!

 

[knocky1]

I agree with many on here there was a clique group around and I think Swann was the bully boys leader. monty was ridiculed by him on his Ashes Video around the sprinkler tour.

What I found hard to believe in the Today BBC interview with Pietersen is not that he sent texts to the S Africans because he felt bullied but bexause they were his friends.

Rubbish he only has one friend. Piers Morgan.

 

[The Large One]

Quite. KP's reputation preceded him from South Africa into English County Cricket. KP did not exactly play the team game at Nottinghamshire, so the Aussies were very quick to seize on his ego and look to wind him (and his England team mates) up over it.

It is one thing for a maverick and supremely talented sportsperson like KP to be temperamental and high maintenance but if over indulged the downside is often collateral damage around the dressing room. It needs firm and balanced management, however at some point in his England career that balance was lost.

The team is expected to tolerate KP's traits - but it seems he cannot accept there will be other strong characters in the squad who will not be gagged and would inevitably give him plenty of stick in return. I'm sure that very strong characters like Prior, Anderson, Swann and Broad are not squeaky clean either. As in other walks of life if you set yourself up as something special then you also become a target - it's test of mental toughness that your team mates will continually prod at. Don't dish it out - if you cannot then take it in return.

KP claims that he still wants to be part of the England set up but his mate Darren Gough pointed out that KP has only made himself available for T20 for Surrey, whereas his rivals were racking up reasonable runs across all forms of cricket. So how did KP expect to impress the selectors with some proper batting form? I think it would be a huge own goal for England to take KP back, too many bridges have been burned. Anyway I suggest there is little chance of that while Peter Moores is at the helm.

This latest spat just seems a cynical stunt to publicise KP's book. I look forward to hearing the counterpoint from Matt Prior etc.

Graeme Swann's take...

http://www.espncricinfo.com/england/content/story/787623.html

[tweet]519373872014299136[/tweet]

 

[keaton]

The irony is that KP has accused him of being a " Disruptive influence in the dressing room ", I suppose demanding the current coach gets the sack, and texting details of how to get your own captain ( Strauss ) out isn't disruptive ?

Who did those then? because KP didn't.

 

[Nathan]

KP is on 5 live now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/29363606

 

[OzMike]

It would have been nice for KP to have kept a reasonably dignified silence but, that's just not his way. He is a mass of contradictions and is hard to fathom at the best of times, this little quote says it all for me....

On senior players such as Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad: "The bowlers were given so much power. But these guys ran the dressing room."

But, wasn't it KP who said he wanted Moores sacked as coach ?

No, he is just a cock.

 

[The Oldman]

Good read here:
http://www.sportingintelligence.com...an-uncanny-ability-to-piss-people-off-061014/

 

[Papa Lazarou]

From the article above

The main themes 3: KP on Prior
This is where the book moved from being an explosive entertaining read and moved into unnecessarily spiteful and nasty. Pietersen’s view of Matt Prior goes beyond merely not liking him and into quite worrying levels of hatred.
None of the descriptions of Prior by Pietersen – a bully, a backstabber, teacher’s pet, arrogant – seem to be the Prior that others have described. KP describes Prior pretty unkindly in the book as “a Dairylea triangle thinking he was a brie”.
Naturally there is an element of arrogance in most sportsmen and Prior’s ability and desire to lead was invaluable to England through their period of success perhaps it went too far and he went beyond enthusiastic and vocal into bossy.
Prior was the man at the heart of trying to get KP back into the dressing-room after “text-gate”. Clearly something happened after that. The vitriol that Pietersen saves for Prior specifically rather than anyone else bar Flower, is odd to say the least.
No one at Sussex I have spoken to describes Prior as anything other than a good bloke, a good team mate and a pragmatic man to play cricket with. No one I’ve spoken to in the media or elsewhere has anything other than good things to say about Prior.
This particular part of the book really doesn’t stack up other than it’s completely possible that Prior could have taken over the dressing room post-Strauss. Cook, Bell, Anderson don’t have the personalities to do that. It’s easy to see how that might wind KP up.
Graeme Swann has been quick to defend Prior and you’d expect others to follow suit. He seems a genuinely popular character and it is there that you start to doubt KP. As with everything else in the book, there’s certainly an element of truth in what he says but with typical Pietersen gusto, he’s gone off on one.
If anything in the book loses him sympathy, it will be the nasty, spiteful and unnecessary gunning for Prior that does it.

 

[The Large One]

Can't work out how to link it, but on FiveLive earlier, Aggers is giving his two-penn'orth on Kevin, while KP himself is prowling the studio already having stated that he won't talk directly to Aggers. Then KP asks a question to Aggers about the ECB's attitude to the parody Twitter account without wanting to know the answer. Naturally, Aggers can't answer it because he's not part of the ECB.

KP's own PR, while selling the book handsomely, may well mean people will have to make sure they have a large pot of salt to hand while reading it.

 

[Pavilionaire]

I'm glad that someone had the good foresight to contractually "gag" Pietersen until the cricket season has ended because these stories could have overshadowed what was, by and large, a successful summer of rebuilding England's test team.

Pietersen hasn't just lifted the lid on the England dressing room, he's blown it clean off. But there's more than a grain of truth in what he says.

I hope history is kind to Pietersen because he was a key contributor to a side that had a sustained level of success we hadn't seen in 25 years. That said, he doesn't help himself and whereas writing the book could have been part of the healing process it's now increased the divide between him and the other key players in that successful England side.

 

[Bold Seagull]

This is a great piece on the book - http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/oct/07/the-spin-kevin-pietersen-book

Towards the very end of the book Pietersen writes: “One day we’ll all be old guys playing a charity match somewhere, and we’ll look around at the craggy faces in the dressing room and wonder how we let our friendships fall to pieces.” It feels like the one lucid moment, the one resoundingly true passage, in the entirety of the final few chapters both of his book and his England career.

 

[spring hall convert]

It sounds a cracking read. I'm not sure I have anything further to add.

 

[spring hall convert]

"His autobiography is the most comprehensive act of bridge burning since William Holden parachuted into the River Kwai." The Guardian

That has to be the sleeve quote.

 

[keaton]

It sounds a cracking read. I'm not sure I have anything further to add.

Indeed. Apart from Garry Nelson's I've never read a sportspersons autobiography but I might make an exception for this