If you are totally uniniterested in cricket look away now and go and play Bejewelled or Hearts or something because this post will be meaningless to you. Which is understandable.
Random readers will know that there have been times when Kevin Pietersen had driven me mad. He either scores a century or gets out for a duck (Botham was the same) but when on form is incredibly exciting. Gather he can be a bit tricky and upset people and it seems he has now done it big time. While I agree he has behaved like a bit of an idiot the collective glee and spiteful press briefings about him from some of his colleagues and team mates is a bit cowardly and sticks in the craw somewhat. KP has been castigated for text messages, tweets and sounding off but when the English, and I emphasise English members of the current cricket team, do the same they are allowed to get away with it. Debate has been raging on the forums and comment columns on various newspapers and this summing up on one yesterday is so spot on I have to post it. Not my words though I agree with it all and have let the author know that I have nicked it!
I just love the ECB (English Cricket Board) approach.
ECB: "You can't pick and choose what forms of the game you play in. I
know Strauss only plays test cricket now, and plenty of others play
only one or two forms, but you have to commit to all three."
KP: "OK, I commit to all three forms of the game."
ECB:
"Too late, and we don't think you mean it. We're not picking you for
the T20 World Cup - you know, the one where you were voted player of the
tournament last time. We don't care that you have more experience
playing T20 in Indian conditions because of
that-tournament-we-don't-like-to-talk-about. We want to make a point."
KP: "Fine. Can I play for Surrey?"
ECB: "No. Oh and someone at the Daily Mail says you said something nasty in private about the skipper. You need to apologise."
KP: "You don't know what I said, you're going on a rumour that a journalist heard."
ECB: "Doesn't matter, apologise publicly. We don't care what for."
KP: "I apologise."
ECB: "Well we're not accepting your apology."
KP: "Why not? You asked me to apologise and I did."
ECB: "You're South African and we don't like you."
KP: "So is half the team! So is the gaffer!"
ECB:
"They're different. They haven't done anything vulgar like have the
three lions tattooed on their arm. And they went to public school."
KP: "Well how can I sort this out?"
ECB: "You need to speak to Strauss and Flower."
KP: "When can I see them?"
ECB: "You can't. Strauss has gone on holiday. He said you called him a dumb c*nt."
KP: "He is a dumb c*nt - did you see that leave in the second innings?"
ECB: "The less said about that the better."
KP: "Well what about the gaffer? You said I had to speak to him."
ECB: "He's not around either."
KP: "He is. I saw him on TV at Lords earlier, going on about how we need to talk and sort this all out like adults."
ECB: "Exactly. Behind closed doors though. No PR stuff."
KP:
"What about the walls and roof? You bastards said my contract
discussions were behind closed doors, but you seemed to leave all the
windows open because half Fleet Street knew about negotiations before I
did."
ECB: "We don't know what you're talking about. We absolutely do not regularly dine with Daily Mail reporters at Claridges."
KP: "Whatever. I want to speak to Mr Flower and sort this out. Why won't he speak to me?"
ECB:
"Well he doesn't like you anymore, despite you being our leading run
scorer and stuff. He heard you might have said something about him
although the Saffers say he wasn't mentioned in those texts. The
possibility that you might have said something hurtful has hurt his
feelings."
KP: "You're all a bunch of doos."
I gather 'doos' is an Afrikaan word which is not very nice. Various translations have been given. The press have really gone to town on Pietersen and the journalists are having a field day sticking the knife in, assisted by the wonderful trio of Anderson, Swann and Broad all of whom are getting away with murder. But they are nice English boys so that's ok. The other South African player in the team, Jonathan Trott, is keeping very quiet about it all.
I feel so strongly about this appalling witch hunt that I am thinking of forming the Kevin Pietersen Appreciation Society. He has behaved like an idiot, is self obsessed and insecure and can appear, and probably is, arrogant but enough is enough. I think the British sense of fair play is beginning to kick in now. At least I hope so.
And my apologies for boring you all.
