Living with the loneliness inside the head that wears a crown was a test Kevin
Pietersen never passed as England captain. He hugged and hyped his players,
hoping they would love him in return, and failed to cut the apron-strings
tying him to his predecessor Michael Vaughan.
This unhealthy relationship was what did for his captaincy more than any
other. It was Vaughan who flagged concerns about head coach Peter Moores to
the ECB during last winter’s New Zealand tour, when he first considered
resigning as captain. It was Vaughan to whom Pietersen turned after the
disastrous defeat in the Stanford Challenge, flying to Vaughan’s home in
Barbados for a crisis dinner.
It was Vaughan that Pietersen wanted back in the England team, even though
there was no justification for picking him. And it was to Vaughan that
Pietersen sent a text message of apology after Vaughan had been omitted from
the West Indies tour party. Soon after that, Pietersen’s impatience with
Moores had become public via a newspaper for which Vaughan worked. Vaughan
denies he was the source.
What Pietersen had not grasped was that he and Vaughan, as two Test captains
who had worked most closely with Moores, felt more strongly than others
about the coach’s methods. When one hateful defeat followed another in
India, Pietersen, in desperation, felt he had to engineer what Vaughan could
not, Moores’s removal.
Never one for half measures, he wanted Moores’ assistant coach Andy Flower and
other support staff removed as well. And when Pietersen gave Hugh Morris,
the managing director of the England team, a sack-him-or-I-go ultimatum, he
added: “The whole of the team think he is no good. The whole of the team
want him to go.” Even a bull in a china shop might have proceeded with more
care.
After Morris had checked the veracity of the claims, the England captain was
told he did not know his team as well as he thought. Every player was spoken
to and, according to a senior ECB source, it transpired that “a lot of them
were happy with Moores . . . they thought, ‘Why are we going to war?’ . . .
Pietersen found he had lost the dressing room”. Amid the drama of all the
betrayals — by Pietersen towards his coaches, some players towards their
captain and the board for publicising Pietersen’s lack of support — it is
easy to overlook that Pietersen was not cut out for a job that needs
diplomacy and good sense.
Two members of the ECB executive board that sat in judgment on Pietersen last
Tuesday agreed that the England captain had displayed staggering immaturity
seven months away from an Ashes series.
“He did a great job to start with,” said one, “and could have been very good,
if only he had listened and matured.” The other observed: “He did not have a
lot of respect for the England coach or his back-up team. In normal
circumstances, he might have sat down and talked things through with his
chief counsellor and guide. But Peter was the person he most could not work
with.”
If Pietersen recently had a dressing-room ally, it was Andrew Strauss, the man
who now succeeds him. On the face of it an unlikely pair, they appeared to
have recognised their positions as the next captains-in-waiting. Strauss was
among the first Pietersen confided in.
But even Strauss’s sympathy for Pietersen’s stand was qualified. “Kevin will
stand up for his beliefs until the cows come home . . . but we haven’t
played as well as we should have done and it is wrong for players to blame
the coach for that. It’s important players take responsibility.” The absence
of a head coach in West Indies may force them to do that. If only Pietersen
had been more responsible. As it was, several ill-judged actions left the
board no choice but to remove him, which is what they did.
His talks with an Indian Premier League franchise aroused suspicions about his
motives for returning to India after the terror attacks. And his decision to
continue with a holiday in Africa while the captaincy crisis escalated —
even after his wife, Jessica Taylor, had returned to Britain to appear in
Dancing on Ice — suggested a careless regard for his position.
Pietersen may not have leaked anything to the media, but his silence spoke
volumes about his attitude towards Moores, and when Morris contacted him by
phone last Sunday Pietersen was unwilling to give ground — not surprisingly
for a man who once put a restraining order on a Notts teammate, Jason
Gallian, to prevent them talking over their differences. “We were seeking to
solve the situation managerially,” one ECB source said. “The issue was,
could they get on, could their heads be banged together?” The answer was no.
With the situation irretrievable, Morris called an executive board
teleconference to tell them he was proposing to remove both Pietersen and
Moores, after calling those players he had not spoken to in India. Support
was strong among the 10 members who joined the conference call (two were
unavailable). “Hugh made the final decisions but was given clear guidance,”
said one. “What he was told was broadly what he proposed and what happened.
There was no disagreement.”
Another said: “We couldn’t have Pietersen saying who could be coach.”
Pietersen, shocked when Morris told him his fate was sealed, took 20 hours
to publicly confirm his “resignation”. But he swiftly texted friends and
some teammates, Strauss among them, with news of his imminent departure. It
is believed that one of these contacts then informed Sky TV, who broke news
of the double-departure the next morning.
Pietersen issued a defiant statement saying he was standing down even though
he felt he had “much more to offer as captain”. But he may have felt relief
also, because there were signs he had found captaincy duties onerous. The
terror attacks in India had caused enormous strain and prompted a revealing
remark: “The four-year tenure that captains mostly do is now down to four
months.”
Pietersen will be hurt, as he knows there were teammates with doubts about
Moores. “The situation was extraordinarily serious long before Christmas,”
one source confirmed. “There were issues even before Pietersen became
captain. It proved very difficult following Duncan Fletcher.” Former players
Matthew Hoggard and Geraint Jones both said they were aware of difficulties
in the camp from the very start of Moores’ reign stemming from the coach’s
unwillingness to give players much down-time.
Hoggard said that when he joined a tour of Sri Lanka six months after Moores
took over, he noticed then that there were problems between players and
management.
“Moores was different to Fletcher and a lot of the older players liked the
Fletcher approach of counsellor and adviser,” said one official. “Moores was
not like that. He had a strong work ethic and that worked at Sussex where
there were no stars and he made them better than the sum of their parts.
That way didn’t fit the England model. There was a problem throughout and it
came to a head with KP. Moores was overpromoted.”
When Moores took over, morale was low but he wanted to be in charge and no-one
was too big to be asked to do new things. The training was overdone and the
tours of Sri Lanka and New Zealand proved joyless; those who came last in
drills were treated to humiliating little rituals. But he didn’t understand
the needs of international cricketers and was a shaky selector, though he
rightly mistrusted a burgeoning Wag culture.
Moores’ captains — Vaughan and Paul Collingwood — were the ones who found his
style most irksome. When Collingwood resigned his captaincy duties, he
informed Morris, not Moores. Andrew Flintoff, a known endorser of Moores
last week, might have joined their camp, but injury meant that India was his
first Test tour under Moores.
But Pietersen, encouraged by Vaughan to think of himself as a future captain,
was on-message and when he duly got the job asked that Moores took a back
seat. This appeared to happen — Moores was seen less publicly in Antigua and
India — but Strauss hazarded that the old Moores was still in evidence.
Asked what the difficulties between them were, he said: “KP is the type of
player who wants to be left alone to concentrate on his game and Peter is
enthusiastic in challenging players. That might have been one of the issues.”
If the ECB are guilty of anything, it is appointing Moores so precipitately in
2007. They did not even interview Tom Moody, the man they favour now, though
they will do well to get him, given his lucrative deal at Western Australia.
They might also have got rid of Moores sooner, but he was their pick and
naturally they were not inclined to rush to admit their mistake.
Finding a replacement will be a long process; a new man may not be installed
for the home season. Graham Ford, a Pietersen ally and importer of talent at
Kent, will now slip from the reckoning, and the smart money might be on
Mickey Arthur being lured away from South Africa after their next series
with Australia. The job will be formally advertised this week.
The toughest time in the West Indies will be the early days, as the spotlight
falls on Pietersen’s return to the dressing room that spurned him and to
working with Flower, who has taken up Moores’ selectorial duties for the
tour. Much has been heaped on Strauss’s plate but Morris will be on hand
from the start to ensure the fur doesn’t fly. “There is bridge-building and
man-management to be done,” Strauss said. “It’s important I do that and we
get issues resolved. But it is not a hopeless situation and not as bad as
people make out.” He correctly thinks Pietersen will bring runs rather than
ructions.
Things could be worse. England are well shot of Moores and Pietersen was a
hissy-fit waiting to happen. Strauss is a sound pair of hands, perhaps more,
although if he wants an easier life he will not rush Vaughan back.
Dressing-room harmony can recover; after all, the players were as one about
returning to India. The biggest fissures are in Pietersen’s looking-glass.
‘Vicious feud in English cricket’
The details of England’s internecine strife have made for happy reading Down
Under. Just over a week after their first home series defeat in nearly 19
years, Australia have beaten South Africa and can now look on amused as the
Poms tear each other apart, six months before the start of the Ashes. The
Aussie press has feasted on the splits within the dressing room and the
bloggers haven’t been slow to make their feelings known . . .
“English cricket has seen some bloody civil wars but the feud between
bullheaded Pietersen and the industrious, unpretentious coach Peter Moores
has been the most vicious for some time” Melbourne Herald Sun
“If Australian cricket fans thought Ricky Ponting and his men had pre-Ashes
problems, they needed only to watch England's leadership saga descend into
farce on Wednesday to feel things may be looking up. Finally with something
to smile about after their team’s 103-run victory over South Africa in the
third Test in Sydney, Australians could be forgiven for laughing out loud as
their traditional foes shot themselves in the foot” The Canberra
Times
“The English have searched for excuses, and now they've laid the blame for the
country's coaching crisis at Shane Warne's door. Pietersen and Moores are
barely on speaking terms and it is clear the skipper detests his coach’s
methodical approach” Sydney Morning Herald
“Strauss is adequate but KP is the better choice and the ECB need to reinstate
him. When looking to become a force in Test cricket it is essential to have
a captain who has conviction in his decisions and a competitive spirit. KP
is the firebrand that fits the mould and relishes the challenge of going
after teams like Australia” Sammykent
“At last a worthy player got the captaincy. Although I prefer to give Flintoff
another chance I feel Andrew is a better team player than KP. But ECB is now
facing the problem of fitting Strauss in their ODI unit. Finally ECB, please
try to hang on to a captain for a reasonable time!!!” madmike360
“Seems to me that this dressing room will take time to heal. Flintoff and
Pietersen in opposite camps in the dressing room is like fuel and fire
separated by a weak Strauss. An explosion is inevitable. Both strong
personalities and men of enormous convictions and self-belief. Can't see how
a good England team performance can be extracted consistently out of this
bunch” Slinga
THE MEN NOW RUNNING ‘ENGLISH’ CRICKET
ANDREW STRAUSS, CAPTAIN Born Johannesburg, South Africa
ANDY FLOWER, BATTING COACH Born Cape Town, South Africa
OTTIS GIBSON, BOWLING COACH Born St Peter, Barbados
RICHARD HALSALL, FIELDING COACH Born Harare, Zimbabwe
HUGH MORRIS, MANAGING DIRECTOR Born Cardiff, Wales
Like a bunch of kids in a playground. Make them play in short trousers. Never mind, we might beat Bangladesh in 2010. How can Flower be appointed coach after some of the batting we've seen recently?
Alan Jones, Brighton, UK
Cricket is only played at "posh" schools now though. English cricket's demise is a product of egalitarianism.
PETER MINNS, HULL, EAST YORKSHIRE
What!!?? No australians?
You've got no chance
Sir Francis, Sydney, Australia
"HOPING THEY WOULD LOVE HIM?!"
They didn't perform mate,as simple as that.In India they just didn't perform.He made one of the most brilliant 100s ever made by a visiting batsman let alone a captain in India.There was no support.All these guys-Harmison, Anderson etc where thrashed in India.
tattu, mumbai, india