Cricket - The Ashes

[MrD]

Does anyone feel that maybe just maybe we can pull something major out of the bag tomorrow in the 3rd Ashes Test ?

Halfway towards the target and Australia half way in terms of wickets needed !

[Spinner]

Crazier things have happened in cricket...can't think of many immediately, though. If we do pull off a draw, let along a win, it'll be bigger than Johannesburg 1995.

Having said that, if Stokes and Prior were still to be there at tea, I imagine we'd have scored 150 by then - a mere 100 runs to get in the evening session, and the Aussies would be getting jittery...

Dream scenario: having survived 15 overs, from the non-striker's end a painkiller-filled Broad (5*) watches Stokes (165*) flay Johnson's last ball of the day through cover point to seal a famous one-wicket victory. The Barmy Army goes wild. Australia are shattered, and after a revitalised England go on the rampage at the MCG (winning by 201 runs), capitulate in Sydney (going down by an innings and 34 runs) as thousands of English tourists cheer Swann to a 14-wicket haul, and England to a famous 3-2 series victory.

Here's hoping!

[ejwrank]

Well I hope that Spinner is right and I am wrong but I can see it all ending quite quickly tomorrow (small hours of the morning)-- it's been a massive disappointment so far and England has looked sad throughout.

[MrD]

Oh well....still a better performance from some in the 2nd innings - just a shame that the senior batsmen just didnt get a few more runs between them

[MrD]

Kevin Pietersen = Scapegoat

Everyone talks about a clear out but what team will be sent out for the 1st Test in the Summer

Cook
Root
Bell
Ballance
?
Stokes
Prior / Bairstow (W)
Broad
? (Spinner)
Anderson
?

To me there are only 3 spaces available and everyone else was part of the winter

[TheyCallMeMrGlass]

I am not knowledgeable enough about the county cricket circuit to fill those gaps MrD, despite the fact cricket is my main playing sport but I am really disappointed in the loss of KP this way as I was a big fan of him despite my misgivings of his character.

However, we dont know why the management team dropped him but its clear he goes against the grain of their principles. Cliveas kindly gave me an invitation to a Kevin Pieterson one on one interview show and its clear that KP is quite the talker behind people's back. For instance, he is supposed to be very good friends with Warne and yet he was mocking him and saying unsavoury stuff about how he has become unbearably goody goody or something like that. He is a quite the complainer by nature and very stubborn but his personality is strangle likeable and he's funny in a rather bitter way. I asked a question to him about what he thought of coaches telling him to bat in a way that goes against his natural instinct and he frowned then laughed as the interviewer called me a suited up tosser (I was wearing tracksuit and right at the back so they couldnt see me) or something along that lines...maybe CliveAs has a better me memory of it, if he's reading this. KP is a bit of a conundrum. He seems a very marmite character. You either like his candid, ruthless ways or you dont. But there is no doubt about his instinctive nature to talk unfavourably behind people backs.

Despite those negative observations and being called a tosser by the interviewer in which KP had a good laugh, I still liked KP and so I still went up to him to take a picture and I told him I was the one who asked the coaching question and was sorry if the question annoyed him, he said dont worry about it and he cheerfully put his arm on my shoulder for the picture. Not sure if he remembered I was called a tosser though.

Now KP probably is the most socially incompatible cricketer, the England team has ever experienced. Quiet cricketers easy to handle. Rowdy naughty cricketers like Botham and Flintoff could also be handled because they never insulted their fellow lads, they were just naughty (though Botham did have a dig at the establishment at a charity dinner once and duly got suspended). But KP, he's different, he just cant help taking behind specific individual's backs and upsetting them. So I think that's what it all came down to and the management simply couldnt handle him. However it still begs the question WHY they cant handle him. One point of view is that they are the real failure in their own job of handling KP. KP is crowd puller. He is the money maker. His batting has always thrilled me like no other since Ian Botham. He is our most successful batsmen in decades, yet he is crucified for not being better than he is.

But that is all speculation, I am not in dressing room and neither are the media reporters. The real reason is an official question mark. Scapegoat for the management's inadequecies? Sure it could well be that. I'd even like to bet on it. But it could also be that KP is just one big pain in the ass and although he is England's best cricketer, his presence has a negative effect on the psychology of the England team and management.

One thing is for sure, whoever fills those 3 gaps, England will be duller without KP until another "character" rises.