After a forgettable tour Down-under, a big change in the team & strategy for the English team was imminent. It began with the sacking of the team director Andy Flower and recently the knife was dropped upon their star batsman Kevin Pietersen. It is said that this move to potentially end Kevin Pietersen’s international career was followed by his row with England Captain Alastair Cook, which was later refuted by the skipper.
Kevin Pietersen was England’s highest run scorer in their abysmal Ashes defense, so sacking a player of his caliber before others raises a lot of questions about the intentions of ECB. Was this move taken just to set an example for other players and urge them to perform better than they do already?
There are two sides of this story, one is where ECB’s move can be justified as Pietersen was a senior player and the onus of carrying forward a team is on the senior players. Pietersen has been around controversies throughout his nine year long career and by dropping him from the team ECB is setting an example for other cricketers to refrain from the ruffian methods. Pietersen was dropped from the 2012 World T20 despite being their main batsman for the event just because of his irrational behavior. There is another side to this story where sacking of Pietersen is seen as him being made a scapegoat to cover up for the bad form the English team is currently going through.
England is a nation which follows the concept of a gentleman more than any other country, since cricket originated from their nation it was given an epithet of a ‘Gentlemen’s game’. Pietersen, who veered away from their ideology of being a gentleman, was always a troubling element for this board. Throughout his career Pietersen has been in the bad books of ECB and had he not been a brilliant and entertaining batsman as he is, he would have been shown the door way before 2014. Now that the opportunity was nigh, ECB sacked Pietersen without looking at the repercussions it may have to their team.
England is already facing a problem of finding a stable opening partner for Cook. Even Cook recently has been out of form which encumbers the responsibility of the batting on the middle order. Jonathan Trott is already out of the team citing stress, and now with even Pietersen out of it, the England batting will be in complete disarray.
After Pietersen’s exit the only batsman in form is Ian Bell. Why would a board sack its most experienced batman from the team despite him being the team’s highest scorer during the recent tour? It signals towards the malign intentions of the board trying to take out their animosity with the player.
Commercially, this can be a blessing in disguise for KP, with IPL auctions around the corner, him being available for the complete season would definitely fetch him more bucks than usual. While this regressive move by the ECB brought down curtains to the enthralling and entertaining international career of this great batsman, it might prove a lucrative event for the cricketer. Remember the differences between the WICB and Chris Gayle which made him play various T20 leagues around the world and perform which later compelled the board to include him into the team.
England is going to play in the West Indies now, where an inexperienced batting line-up might prove to be lethal for the team, having a player like Pietersen in the team would have helped them build a better team for the World Cup next year but the board thinks otherwise.
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