I'm with KP, are you?

Posted: Saturday, September 4, 2010 by Sanya Michelangelo in Labels: , , , , ,
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ECB didn't needed to drop Kevin Pietersen. He knew he wasn't performing and he was trying. If they wanted him to get some time in the middle, he could play for Surrey while England would play Twenty20 Internationals against Pakistan and return to the team for the ODIs but even that wasn't needed in my view. After all, he is Kevin Pietersen, the guy who reached 1000 one-day runs in just 21 matches, holding the world record with Viv Richards. He is 2nd in the list of batsmen scoring most runs in first 25 Tests, only behind Don Bradman. He was among the heroes of Ashes 2005. But dropping him would still work. ECB is preparing him for the Ashes. Somehow, they thought dropping Cook will not work but dropping KP would bring out the best in him. They wanted Cook to prosper and come back to form while playing for England and KP to score some runs in county cricket before the Ashes. KP has been treated differently also because he had feuds with Hampshire and Surrey signed him on a loan after taking permission from Hampshire. He needs a permanent county. If everything goes well for him this season, Surrey will probably sign him for a few years. And if he wouldn't be dropped, Surrey's money would go waste. ECB have been criticised for the tight England schedule, which doesn't let England players to play for their county teams.

The way people have reacted to Pietersen's twitter goof up is disheartening. It was just one tweet about him being dropped and being signed by Surrey. He didn't tweet against any player/coach or ECB. He just got angry at being dropped. Is that something a player cannot say? When Jimmy was dropped earlier this year, he didn't tweet about it but commented in the media that "first he was rested, then dropped. Hats off to the selectors." The only blunder here was that he tweeted before ECB announced the squad officially. But he deleted the tweet and later apologised for it.

In the first 3 days of the 4th Test, I was thinking about what I'll post after the series, stats, pictures, the ones who blossomed and the failures and perhaps even a video compilation. But posting these after the series would mean nothing since people were left talking about how match fixing has affected cricket over the years, how it should be stopped and later about KP being dropped. Some sent him tweets saying that ECB have done the right thing since he was not performing, others abused ECB and told KP, they are with him.

5 comments:

  1. Unknown says:

    Isn't KP heading to South Africa to play for Royal Challengers Bangalore soon? He'll blast his way back to form over there...

  1. Shridhar Jaju,

    He will not play for RCB in the Champions League, he is not allowed. He will play for Surrey during that time.

  1. Unknown says:

    Oh well, that's sad then! But then I do hope he fires for Surrey soon...

    Can't have such a colourful character out of international cricket for too long, can we!?

  1. I believe that giving KP a rest is the best thing for him right now. Some time out of the intensity of international cricket may give him the time that he needs to get his head together.

    The guy is class act! Period. I've never seen a cricketer not go through these down times though (and he is no exception), but I fully anticipate him to bounce back with a point to prove.

    Great research on those stats!! My opinion is that the ECB have made a brave but necessary call. KP will score runs again but they have objectively looked at it and realised that right now he doesn't deserve his spot in the team.