Posts tagged with ‘Kevin Pietersen’

South Africa are just about the best team in the world right now. England are hopeful, but in reality they have got their work cut out. Here’s what they have to do to overcome the odds.

It seems that Kevin Pietersen wasn’t the only one who found working as captain with Peter Moores to be difficult. Michael Vaughan’s new autobiography is currently being serialised by the Times, and in it he reveals the problems that he and the team were having with Moores’ style.

What is it with the English media and Kevin Pietersen? They just can’t stop themselves putting words in his mouth that he didn’t say. There is a great groundswell of opinion that KP is arrogant, aloof and somehow just not a team player. Putting aside the hatred for him in his native South Africa, where he is viewed with disdain for his departure to and qualification for England, he is still not exactly what you could call popular. Yet, much of the criticism is unjustified.

During the course of England’s Test matches, reference is often made to their batsmen’s habit of making starts but failing to convert them into centuries. Generally, blame is placed upon the proliferation of limited overs cricket. Today, England again lost an ODI against Australia, and again a number of their batsmen established themselves, only to lose their wickets. The same trait was their downfall in the 1st ODI on Friday.

Is this a regular feature of their limited overs batting, and what are the reasons behind it?

All of the attention over the last 10 days has surrounded players either injured or badly out of form. Both sides are in a certain amount of disarray, but it promises to be the weather that holds the trump card at Edgbaston.

Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower will be pushing for a say in decisions about England’s contracted players appearing in the IPL. Much fuss is still being made over the injuries to KP and Flintoff in relation to their involvement in South Africa earlier this year. Freddie sustained a new injury during the IPL, whilst KP carried his achilles throughout the tournament.

Once KP was ruled out, we all knew what the squad was going to be. There was almost no point in announcing it.

Had you considered that Ian Bell might actually score some runs against Australia when he replaces the “recently injured” Kevin Pietersen at Edgbaston?

For all those people who are tired of the press insisting that Steve Harmison, Ian Bell or whoever be recalled to the England team, get this: All of the mainstream press are currently running “who will replace KP” type articles. At least three of them have included the name Mark Ramprakash.

On his achilles that is, before all you KP-haters out there get too excited. This means that KP will miss the rest of the Ashes. Frankly, we could see this coming with all the inevitability of a tax-hike. Four injections to limp through five days of cricket is too much.