ANDREW Strauss’s decision to end Kevin Pietersen’s hopes of an international recall have turned English cricket into a laughing stock.
That’s the opinion of many both within the UK and those peering in from the outside.
Cricketing royalty such as former South Africa captain Graeme Smith and Sri Lankan legend Kumar Sangakkara – Pietersen’s teammate at Surrey but not one usually prone to controversial statements – made a mockery of Strauss immediately after his maiden press conference on Monday.
I see the head boy is making English cricket the laughing stock again! #StraussLogic
— Graeme Smith (@GraemeSmith49) May 12, 2015
“I don’t trust @KP24 enough for him to play for England but I trust him enough to advise me on ODI cricket” #strausslogic .
— Kumar Sangakkara (@KumarSanga2) May 12, 2015
You have started something @GraemeSmith49 #strausslogic is trending on twitter…
— Damien Martyn (@damienmartyn) May 12, 2015
And it clearly wasn’t just England’s former rivals shaking their heads at the decision to effectively rule out any chance of England picking its most successful batsman ever again.
The Mirror’s Mike Walters slammed Strauss, not so much for making the decision but for the supposed twisted logic behind it.
“So 326 is enough to get you a majority in the House of Commons at last week’s General Election but not enough to play for England? Jesus wept,” Walters wrote.
“After poring through every scorecard in the new Wisden Almanack, I could not find one batsman who was dismissed c Trust b Philosophy.
“And sacrificing England’s great entertainer on the altar of building for the future is just a lame cop-out.
“Are you seriously, honestly, truthfully, trying to kid the public that Pietersen won’t be needed at the World Twenty20 in India early in 2016? Or against South Africa’s formidable pace attack after Christmas? Or against Australia’s blasted Mitchell brothers, Grant and Phil, this summer?
“Hahahahaha. You’re having a laugh. Or, to put it more accurately, the rest of the world is laughing at you.”
Former England wicketkeeper Alec Stewart, the director of cricket at Pietersen’s county Surrey and allegedly a contender for the job eventually awarded to Strauss, was confused by the ECB’s supposed double standards.
“The word ‘trust’ is a huge word: how long does it take to regain trust?” Stewart said after Pietersen had racked up 355 not out in a county match.
“I do think [Strauss] may have contradicted himself a little bit, in saying on one hand Kevin won’t be playing at all this summer, effectively finishing his England career, but then offering Kevin an advisory role in one-day cricket. I’m not sure how those two marry up, but again Andrew has to be comfortable with that.”
The Telegraph’s Jonathan Liew delivered a blistering assessment of Strauss’s first public performance since taking on his overarching role.
“In his first three days in the job, he has somehow managed to sack a coach, sack a Test vice-captain, sack a Twenty20 captain, and sack a batsman who had already been sacked. At this rate, Strauss will be the only employee left at the England and Wales Cricket Board by Christmas,” Liew wrote.
“But then, trying to take on Pietersen in a public relations battle is like trying to take on an octopus at Twister. You will never win.
“Even though it was Strauss and his boss Tom Harrison who had taken the step of meeting Pietersen for dinner on Monday night, they still managed to come out of it looking worse.
“So important did Strauss appear to regard the issue of trust that you began to wonder whether he had stumbled upon some undiscovered secret of the game, a Moneyball-style performance metric that would blow the sport wide open.
“‘Yes, we lost 2-0 to New Zealand and our batsmen failed miserably. But on the plus side, Chris Jordan let Jos Buttler borrow his garden shears, so it’s been a good week on the whole.’”
Rugby World Cup winning coach Sir Clive Woodward even weighed into the debate, expressing his distaste for the decision to dump Pietersen for a second time.
“England should pick the best team available this summer, and from a fan’s point of view, I would love to see Kevin Pietersen in the middle against New Zealand and Australia,” Woodward wrote in the Daily Mail.
“I can accept that coaches can have problems with players, and if the head coach fronts up and explains why he’s not picking a certain player – for whatever reason – fine.
“What I can’t accept is when the decision comes from the executives. With his first decision, Andrew Strauss has tied stand-in coach Paul Farbrace’s hands behind his back. He can’t pick the team he wants in theory.
“The head coach of any team should have the ability to pick whoever he wants. Instead, we have the director of cricket and selection committee making the decisions.
“It’s such an archaic way of doing things. Pietersen is not the problem here, the problem is the timewarp English cricket is stuck in. The Aussies and the Kiwis will be loving every minute of it!”
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COIN
However, the lampooning of Strauss and anger on Pietersen’s behalf wasn’t universal among the British press.
England legend Ian Botham supported the decision as did retired spinner Graeme Swann, who has had a better view than most of Strauss and Pietersen at close quarters.
Swann launched an impassioned defence of Strauss and his decision to offload the Pietersen problem.
“It would have been easy to appoint somebody to make sweeping, populist changes that would be potentially damaging for the team in the long-term,” Swann wrote in The Sun.
“I know for a fact it is not just Straussy who has trust issues with Kevin, but quite a few players who are still in the England team.
“His autobiography burned a lot of bridges. It was an end-of-career, bitter swipe at everyone. He must realise the bridges he has burned can’t automatically be rebuilt.”
While Botham was pleased Pietersen wouldn’t be handed an England recall, he wasn’t a fan of another major decision made by Strauss.
“Andrew Strauss is not messing about,” Botham wrote in The Mirror. “He has made some big decisions straight away in his new job as England’s director of cricket and, for the most part, I think he is spot on.
“He has ditched Kevin Pietersen, which I believe is the right call; and he has got rid of coach Peter Moores too, which I also agree with.
“But the one area where we are going to have to agree to disagree is with the guarantee he has given Alastair Cook as captain.”
Perhaps the most creative take on the whole saga came courtesy of veteran Daily Mail journalist Martin Samuel, who likened the feud between Pietersen and Strauss to the fallout between Noel and Liam Gallagher, of Oasis fame.
“Why would anyone not pick Kevin Pietersen? For pretty much the same reason that Noel Gallagher quit Oasis, the first time. Stay tuned. It’s like this.
“In 2000, on a tour that was still big enough to include two sell-out gigs at Wembley Stadium, the band reached Barcelona. Noel and his brother Liam had a row which got quite personal.
“At the end of it, Noel quit touring. His decision, he said, was simple. He could retire to his lovely villa in Ibiza or he could spend the rest of the summer travelling around Europe with this ****head.
“And that is pretty much where Andrew Strauss was on Tuesday. There was no lovely Balearic retreat awaiting him, but he would rather fight Australia with one hand tied behind his back then welcome Pietersen back into the England dressing-room. Some may regard this as petty and vindictive but nobody should doubt the desire in any sportsman to win.”
