Graham Thorpe

Blame this mess on Pietersen

Wed Jan 07 03:33PM

I am surprised and dismayed that the England team has got into its current state, and the blame for this mess lies with Kevin Pietersen.

He has acted irresponsibly in pushing for coach Peter Moores to be sacked and he has put himself above the team - those are not the actions of a good captain.

England thought they knew what they were taking on when they made Pietersen captain - he is a headstrong character with strong ideas and little appetite for compromise.

But the way he has gone about this has been completely counterproductive and he has presented England with a massive problem.

I can tell you that no cricket team is entirely without conflicts, but the team should always come first and you should try to hammer out your differences.

You can't do that sitting on a camel in South Africa or wherever Pietersen has been on holiday. He needs to sit down with Peter Moores back in England and talk to him.

It's one thing to be a no-nonsense skipper who doesn't accept mediocrity - but it is quite another to place yourself above the game and try to get rid of the coach by saying: 'Either he goes or I go'.

As a consequence, both will go. It is a mess and there are no winners.

I challenged authority a few times in my career but I never did it in public and I never compromised the team.

Pietersen does not look good in a lot of people's eyes. Moores does not come across as a bad bloke - maybe he lacks a bit of international experience, but he is a good organiser and gets guys in a good place to go and play cricket.

His methods worked at County level and I am surprised Pietersen has not seen the bigger picture, which is that he has to work with people whether or not they would be his first choice.

I think the players will deal with it well as long as it gets sorted - these chaotic situations affect players less than many people imagine. The problem in the dressing room is that Pietersen has shown he doesn't deserve the captaincy.

I am pleased the captaincy has been handed to Andrew Strauss, who has come through problems with his form and his personal life, been in and out of the team and has dealt with it all very maturely.

It should be up to Strauss whether he wants Pietersen on the tour of the West Indies.

Pietersen's place in the team must be under immediate threat. However good you are, you can't create this kind of situation as people will start asking which side you are on - the team's or your own?

I am amazed that somebody close to him - a family member, his agent, his wife - has not told him to take a step back and ask himself where this is going.

It is an incredible situation, and so frustrating as it comes in an Ashes year and at a time when Australia are in a spot of bother.

They have lost series to India and South Africa and are really struggling, but we have handed the initiative back to them. The Aussies will be laughing their heads off.

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Whoever is responsible for putting someone with such an enormous lack of self discipline as captain should be sacked. Anyone with any sense saw how single minded and selfish KP was last year when he needlessly slogged at balls and got himself out,on several occasions, all in an effort to show off and inflate his ego..Sure he scored runs but when a steady, long innings was needed in order for England to avoid defeat, he didn't want to know, he couldn't restrain himself, he failed his team mates. Commentators saw it coming and groaned when his innings predictably came to a premature end. No surprise what has happened now.
From wend_bloo on Thu Jan 08 03:55PM
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Personally,i think its a good thing that this debacle has surfaced and not swept under the carpet as in the past,this opens doors to compromise and sincere dialogue for future team selection,team building.No-one is bigger than the game.KP needs to be included in the team despite the controvercy.He will have learnt a valuable lesson.Be positive guys.Lloyd
From lloyd.williams15 on Thu Jan 08 04:11PM
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POMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From wm_rae on Thu Jan 08 07:41PM
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Well.Nice story!! It has been confirmed that mixedracial relationship is very fashionable now, more and more single people are searching for mixedracial love....Black man for white lady and white man for chocolate girl ..there is a big storm on the famous mixedracial on9 community
****mixed loving .[ 0000 m*****
From yasiryang3 on Fri Jan 09 06:04AM
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KP should just come back and play for South Africa. I don't know how he managed to sneak into the England team, let alone assume the role of the England Test Captain, but now that he has messed things up in England he should stop pretending to be English and take the place of Jacques Kallis or Neil Mckenzie in the South African team.
From lassiestevens on Fri Jan 09 07:20AM
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Sorry Thorpe,but I sense a bit of jealousy. Just because he took your place in the 2005 Ashes,having not played International test cricket before ( must say something about the seletors' confidence in you), and played a huge role in winning the ashes. So, look, just chill, and keep your opinions private just like K.P. should have. Simple.
From dom_scott03 on Fri Jan 09 11:57AM
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Thorpe, I sense a bit of jealousy in your article. Yes, K.P took your place in the Ashes 2005, even though he hadn't played in an Internatonal test match, and played a huge role in winning them back but why don't you just chill, keep your opinions private, like this whole choas should've been and everything will die out and hopefully England cricket can get back to normal.
From dom_scott03 on Fri Jan 09 12:23PM
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Thorpe, I sense a bit of jealousy in your article. Yes, K.P took your place in the Ashes 2005, even though he hadn't played in an Internatonal test match, and played a huge role in winning them back but why don't you just chill, keep your opinions private, like this whole choas should've been and everything will die out and hopefully England cricket can get back to normal.
From dom_scott03 on Fri Jan 09 12:24PM
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Would someone please tell me what @#S% is supposed to mean? It's bad enough having attrocious spelling,terrible grammar and unintelligible comments on this site without mystifying symbols.
KP would not have let the side down or absent himself which is more than you can say for Thorpe who appears to be making cheap asides. I hope he's not being paid for his asinine opinions.
James
From jamesbd on Fri Jan 09 01:21PM
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What does @#S% mean? I can't find it in my dictionary.
James
From jamesbd on Fri Jan 09 01:25PM
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agree entirely. in his day Boycott was totally self interested and disliked for it and his lack of personality. Looks like Peterson has similar traits plus he can't catch a ball and gets out too frequently to self-indulgent shots when the team position requires him to bat with maturity and in the team's interest-not his own. Maybe he should play for SA under Graham Smith?
From steveholcroft on Fri Jan 09 03:14PM
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agree entirely. in his day Boycott was totally self interested and disliked for it and his lack of personality. Looks like Peterson has similar traits plus he can't catch a ball and gets out too frequently to self-indulgent shots when the team position requires him to bat with maturity and in the team's interest-not his own. Maybe he should play for SA under Graham Smith?
From steveholcroft on Fri Jan 09 03:14PM
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When you accept characters like Pieltersen into your team, you get a @#$% that struts around. He thinks he can change the game with reverse sweeping for 6 and picking his mates as coach, playground mentality. He is a South African. Get an englishman in there, he should not be there, he has only loyalty to money and fame. He had no respect for the SA system, whatever gave the selectors the idea he would have respect for their system? The tatto on his arm? Incredulous that these guys are running the game when they have no common or cricket sense. English cricket gets what it deserves, you reap what you sow.
From vdm1 on Fri Jan 09 04:30PM
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Well said Thorpey !!
From bavarianroots on Fri Jan 09 04:50PM
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Re 57, I take it hisjoker is making a pretty sick joke. To compare Graham Thorpe with poor Paul Gascoigne is in the worst possible taste. Thorpe suffers from bipolar disorder too does he? Also, Bradman was one of Australia's greatest captains. Any piffling idiot who knows anything about the history of the game would not include him with Lara and Tendulkar, who were not at all successes as captains. The great thing about the Don was that although he was the greatest ever batsman in the history of cricket, he never allowed that to get in the way of getting the best out of the team; if there had been any problems they were kept within the dressing room and not aired in public. Today's sportsmen, not just cricketers, could do a hell of a lot worse than to behave like players did back then.
From peterjhead on Fri Jan 09 08:16PM
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I wonder how soon it is before KP has a sabatical, " for personal reasons to rest and recuperate from mental fatigue", and buggars off too India to make a fortune from 20/20. Sadly, he doesn't give two tosses about English cricket - but his next autobiography will appear before next xmas..... and will reveal all!!!! Keep the kid in the side on a tight leash, cause to be fair, he can bat a bit.
From hapuka35kg on Fri Jan 09 08:51PM
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thorpe is one jealous guy, and as for flintoff to the rescue..... hes already had a go, couldnt handled it turned into an alcoholic, nearly drown in a dingy, had the captainacy taken off him and disgraced himself, if its true he lead the stand against peters then its prob jealousy aswel coz peters is the better captain.... and what did peters do wrong anyway, thats right he wanted the england cricket team to get somewhere, and he obviously didnt think the coach was up to it! yeah hes head strong and yeah so what if he has and ego, (think freddie and harmy have bigger egos) hes entitled hes a bloody good cricketer...and i dont think it was peters wish to have this played out in public....you have to ask where the leaks came from! and as for sitting on safari putting in demands...would you come back from holiday for work????? if i were him i go play in the IPL and sod england!
From helen.rafferty on Fri Jan 09 11:28PM
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PT. He's done to England what he did to Notts,walked out because he thought he was the better than everyone else WRONG!cricket is a team game and until he accepts that he should go and play for his home nation and leave England with immediate effect.
From ar.dodson on Sat Jan 10 05:39PM
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If England get rid of KP it will be a long time before they win another test. "Those in Glass Houses should not throw stones"
From darryl.thurairajah on Sat Jan 10 09:03PM
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Whos Graham Thorpe?
From reubencol on Sun Jan 11 03:40PM
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If anybody is to blame, might I suggest the Ecb for putting a man, who obviously had issues with the coach, as team captain. That was the day it all went wrong, and Peterson no doubt thought, as his ego twitched, that he could oust Moores, a little farther on down the line. A "tactical" mistake on KP's part, methinks. When Vaughn resigned, my first choice would have been Strauss. As one of the nice folk above mistakenly said, that he was only good against medium pace and spinners, he must of forgotten Strauss's contribution in the last Ashes.
From pompstarr on Mon Jan 12 02:07PM
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piertson should never have been giver the captainy he is too big headed for that job.we ahve again elected a south sfrican when are we going to have a british skipper
From frank.smith27 on Mon Jan 12 08:50PM
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Strauss has class!And a decent haircut!
From carla.chuter on Tue Jan 13 08:27AM
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you just lost yourselves a good captain.... while our Biff captain Graeme Smith(with the same attitude like Pieterson) he is doing it for us.... you will never be team again in the next decade if you keep on destroying captains who speak out when somethng is wrong
From bkmotsepe on Tue Jan 13 10:01AM
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Thorpe like many pundits jumped the gun.There is only the ECB to blame.The only slimey tactics came not from Moores or Pieterson,but from
within the smarmey ECB backroom. You Chose Pieterson,as captain then as soon as there is an hint of unrest,blow it out of proportion,then get your revenge,somebody in the ECB is rubbing his hands,and his neck
should be put on the block by ECB. There was no safari mis-understanding
just bad press after leakage. Moores and Pieterson in reality upto now
come out clean
From fostnig on Tue Jan 13 01:28PM
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keep kp he is still by far the best batsman yet
From dugtarr on Sun Jan 25 02:43PM
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