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I’d expected this to happen halfway through the Ashes, but at least now the new man will get a chance to establish his captaincy.
Turns out that the ECB in a survey of views found less than unanimous support amongst the England players for KP’s handling of the Vaughan thing. Well who’d have thunk it.
Has to be given to Strauss now surely? They can’t really be thinking of giving it to Flintoff again?
Whoever it is has to make the effort to involve KP and reassure him that he is essential to the team. He is the only genuinely world class English batsman.
He played this badly. It left a sour taste frankly and whatever Moore’s shortcomings (has there really been anything specific?), Petersons obvious politics and power games were distasteful
I would welcome Strauss as captain
Moores has gone too, it appears.
I think there is a general feeling that though he was not of the first rank of coaches, though he is a nice chap and competent enough. He is more of a stats man than a tactician and, going out of my way to be fair to Pietersen, as an inexperienced captain (at any level) he would have needed a lot of tactical advice.
But as you say, he handled it badly. The fact that none of the England players offered even veiled or hinted support for his position should have told him he might have got this wrong.
Logic dictates Strauss. So it will probably be Panesar.
Not sure where you all get the negative KP thing….
He has done very well for England, moreso as captain.
Truth is, we don’t really know why these events have taken place.
Zip
I think players like Pietersen and Flintoff play better without the burden of captaincy and if the ECB can overlook a couple of incidents and grow a pair of bails they could try something positive and give the captaincy to Robert Key. Leave Strauss and Pietersen to concentrate on their batting against the aussies, imo.
This is just one complete mess, with no one person at fault as far as i can see. The contention of Moores as coach started under Vaughan, something went on and there has been a division in the camp since. There is confusion in communication between captain, coach, selection and management.
Surely the ECB knew the type of character KP is when they gave him the job. He is demanding and abrassive and in time under the right structure may have made a good captain. ‘Back me or sack me’ is just the type of person he is.
Other points of confusion.
1. Is one captain under both codes wanted or not? If not what has changed? Two captains will certainly make unification in a disjointed teammore difficult.
2. Selection issus like that of Pattenson who had neither the confidence of captain or coach, similarly the chopping and changing of the wicket keeper, the axing of Hoggard, whilst sticking with Bell and Collingwood through thick and thin.
3. The awarding of a central contract to a resigned Vaughan!There is nothing at all to indicate that on the field KP was a poor captain in any way. If there was a serious personality clash then its one of those things. Appear that KP was not the only one. It could be suggested that KP was being forthright and honest about his views and feelings and for englands longer term success, it was better to blow this up rather than have it festering (as it did with Atherton and illingworth and to an extent Flintoff and Fletcher)
Shane Warne would have been a fine (perhaps brilliant) on field captain for Australia. But he would never… ever…. have worked with John Buchanan
KP was out of his depth. I’m not sure when he realised this, probably some time during the Indian tour. He needed tactical guidance, someone to mentor him and Moores was not the man. Hence the Vaughan spat. The ECB have rightly concluded that the England captaincy is not some sort of on-the-job training scheme and that Pietersen showed poor judgement in publically picking a fight over this issue. Of course, that begs the question as to why they appointed him in the first place. But then why did they appoint Flintoff? It seems we will never learn that the best player is not automatically the best captain, indeed if he is, it is usually pure coincidence.
As far as I know, the Pattinson selection, the dropping of Hoggard and the use of only Sussex wicketkeepers was all down to Moores. He’s an ordinary coach, but a decent man and deserved a little better than this. I think I read that he was given a say in choosing the captain and chose Pietersen, in which case Pietersen probably owed him a little more courtesy.
Typical ECB. Can’t even organise an exciting double-sacking. Where were the angry shouted questions from a baying mob of hacks? Where were the scuffles with reporters? The tears? The threats of legal action? No, all we get is an exchange of press releases and then timid little Hugh Morris reading out a prepared story as long as the assembled media types promised not to ask him any questions.
"Once upon a time," he began, in a whispery little voice, "There were two nice men called Kevin and Peter. Then we sacked them both even though neither of them had done anything wrong. And they both lived happily ever after. The end."
And off he skipped to Neverland.
Mind you, Sky News wasn’t much better. Between 5:40pm and 5:55pm we saw the same footage of KP at Durban airport approximately fourteen times. I’ve memorised it now. I can picture him, wearing a light burgundy top with a hint of charcoal. He walks past a Subway (closed) and a man with a shiny forehead who turns to watch him go. The camera lingers on the back of KP’s head for a while. A little later on, we see him handing a ticket to an official. Fourteen times. And Sky had the nerve to call this, ‘Exclusive footage of the England captain.’
Thank God then for Bob Willis. Called in to fill the gap between when Sky started to tell us about the 6 o’clock statement and when it actually arrived, old Bob grumbled, whinged and moaned delightfully for a few minutes, managing to explain that KP had been stupid and that the England players didn’t like him.
Then it was Gower’s turn.
"Is English cricket in a mess, asked the excitable studio presenter. Not really, I was thinking.
"Yes it is," opined David and proceeded to lull us to sleep with a five minute exposition, the finer points of which I may only be able to recall under hypnosis.
Of course it’s nothing of the sort. Socrates would have summed it up thus:
"Wouldn’t you say that yesterday we had a captain who wasn’t quite up to the job?"
"Yes I would."
"And would you also say that we had a coach who wasn’t that great?"
"Well, yes, that’s true."
"And would you further say that the captain and the coach didn’t work well together?"
"I suppose that is true, yes."
"And that the team was divided, not all of them supporting the captain?"
"I would have to say yes."
"And would say that these were bad or good things?"
"Bad things, certainly."
"And after today’s mess, do these things still exist?"
"Well, no."
"So if it is a mess, isn’t it a peculiarly good kind of mess, in which all the problems which existed yesterday have now been resolved?"
"Why, yes it is."
"So can it really be considered to be a mess?"
"When you put it like that, no, I suppose it isn’t."So there you have it. Socrates would have made mincemeat of David Gower. But probably not Andrew Strauss. Which is reason number 94 in the long list of reasons why he should already be captain and we should not be having this conversation.
You could write what I know about cricket on a postage stamp but, never being one to let lack of knowledge get in the way of sticking my oar in, neither Flintoff or Pietersen ever appealed as ‘captain’ material. Flamboyant and showy, willing to go over the top with their comrades, yes, solid strategically minded leaders of men who could keep their heads while about them, etc, emphatically not.
The role of the captain in cricket has always puzzled me. As one who comes at these things from a football paradigm all that selector malarkey and the fuzzy role the captain plays always seemed anathema. Better to put a chap in charge of the whole caboodle and let him get on with it and stand or fall on his judgement and his alone. Cricket always has a too many cooks feel about it, a bit like English rugby. The one big success the rugger lot had was when they did give the one fellow pretty much a free hand. Cricket should follow suit.
Terrific post, Andrew, my favourite of 2009 so far.
If Clare Balding can do a stint on Jackanory, then I’m sure Cynthia Felgate or equivalent is on the phone to book Hugh Morris to read “The Gruffalo” right now!
gc
Adoptive father of two. The patron saint of lower-grade fare. A gently critical friend of point-to-pointing. Kindness is a political act.
Thanks Jeremy. I wasn’t even aware that Jackanory was still going. I have been watching a lot of Bedtime Stories on Nikelodean – various young and shiny people have been reading the stories, though I have the vaguely uneasy feeling I should know who they are. Then the other day, up popped Geri Halliwell reading Little Red Riding Hood. Credit to her, she put more effort into it than the rest of them.
Corm, I think the problem with cricket is that the captain has a much bigger role to play on-field. Of the three sports mentioned, football captains pretty much just need to shout and bawl and lead by example. I’m not too familiar with rugby captaincy, but I’m sure there is more to it than football. Cricket captains have to set fields, change bowlers, determine tactics and deal with a whole range of man-management issues both on and off the field. In the old days, the captain was pretty much responsible for everything short of changing the toilet roll and laying out the sandwiches. The role of the coach meanwhile has expanded from an old pro who might occasionally stand by the second team nets to being a virtual ‘manager’. Duncan Fletcher was a Clive Woodward type figure, I think. But the captain has to have a big say because of the importance of his job. The ideal situation is two people who respect one another working together, with one of them acknowledged as the senior. Fletcher-Hussain and Fletcher-Vaughan was pretty good. We did try giving total power to Ray Illingworth for a time in the nineties. It was not a success.
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