Just a few months into the role. I hope it not a return to the 80’s for England.
Well, bugger me. Really don’t know what to make of this one. On the one hand, Moores is a psychobabble-spouting Peter Principle beneficiary, and was never going to lead England to great things. He needed to go, and sooner rather than later. On the other hand, the way Pietersen went about this doesn’t smack of great leadership, or indeed anything but great ego; while his playing talents are undoubted, where’s his captaincy record to justify picking the coach? On the other other hand, if Pietersen’s resignation was instigated by the ECB’s apparent withdrawal of support for him, then they’ve cut off their nose to spite their face (assuming, that is, that they are genuinely interested in the England cricket team’s performance, and not merely in perpetuating their cosy little coterie). What’s now to stop him saying bollocks to the lot of them, and cashing in on the full 2 months of IPL? On, what, the fourth hand, it’s reasonably plain that Pietersen didn’t exactly have the wholehearted backing of the team, but then on the fifth hand I’m not sure the Flintoff/Harmison axis was ever going to be the most cooperative, no matter who came in as captain after Vaughan.
It’s a fucking mess that puts Australia’s current roulette approach to selection completely in the shade.
On a side note, I never thought I’d see the day when the first place I read a piece of breaking cricket news was on the SDMB, so well done there.
Hey trying lots of Brits and Aussies here, with a smattering of Indians and at least two Pakistanis. We should have news on the dope.
Who do you think will replace him? Strauss, Freddie? Collingwood. How about Bell?
Bring Vaughan back!
Cricket?
Oh c’mon already 
Strauss a nailed-on cert, I’d say. Freddie had his shot, and Strauss was arguably a bit hard done by missing out last time round (although his place as a batsman wasn’t exactly cast-iron at the time). I’d rather they bring in Rob Key, but I realise that most of the rest of the world doesn’t recognise his coruscating brilliance.
Freddie’s a no-no to my mind; it would exacerbate the insular tendencies of a team that’s already far too cliquey.
ETA: Bell!? Shurely you jest.
If the past is anything to go by it could be someone compelely unexpected. Stuart Board? horror
I wonder if anyone here remembers when Cowdery, Chris Cowdery was named captain. What was the board thinking. I was about 4 and I knew it was wrong.
The bloke’s tickets on himself have got tickets on themselves.
It’s been a wonderful day for cricket here, FWIW.
[grumpy old man ON] Bring back Brearley! [grumpy old man OFF]
Latest (see post by the article author in the comments) is that Pietersen won’t tour the West Indies. So it appears that we’ve lost our only world-class batsman as well as our coach and captain. What an utterly spectacular balls-up.
The more I think about it, the more I think this is the ECB reaping what it has sown with its cowardly appointment of Moores, based solely on the fact that he was the only person who had earned enough of the ECB-sponsored coaching badges (rumours that he had his mum sew them onto his Y-fronts remain unconfirmed).
I also don’t really subscribe to the view of Pietersen as a one-man mercenary (although I can see why people do). I get the impression he was entirely straightforward about what his conditions were for accepting the captaincy, and that this current episode is the result of the ECB saying “yeah, sure, whatever” to him at the time, then sitting with their thumbs up their butts once he’d accepted. Love him or loathe him, England need a driven, win-at-all-costs player. Driving him out will be the stupidest thing the ECB has ever done, in a field with some genuine competition.
That’s bad news, not so much because he’s needed in the Windies, but because I don’t think having a restless Pietersen is a good idea. If he’s headed to play Tests anywhere he’d buckle down and get ready to play, but I fear without anything for him to do the chances of him saying, “Sod it, I’m joining the IPL/Dancing With The Stars/Big Brother 11284” increase dramatically.
As far as the Windies tour goes, I think England might be better off without him. Bill Simmons in the US refers to the “Patrick Ewing effect” (superstar leaves a team, and the team actually improves without him because they realize they can’t just rely on him now), and I think that might come into play here. Of course, England being England, they might repeatedly get bowled out for 150 in the Carribean.
QFT.
The Brearley lesson is that when assessing a player, consider all parts of his skillset and how he fits into the team.
England under Botham had a team of individuals, with a leader who was selected because his place was certain. His captaincy failed to raise the game of the other players sufficiently to make up for the inevitable deterioration in his own contributions due to the added burdens. Add to that the magnitude of his deterioration, and it was clear he couldn’t cope in the role. Brearley, while maybe missing the threshold to be a true Test-quality batsman by 5% or so, raised the game of everyone around him by 10%. Botham, free of the leadership role, was able to unwind and grind the Aussies’ faces into the ground with the bat; then Bob Willis demolished the Aussie batting order in a superb display of hostile fast bowling. (I watched the first ball of the last innings power in and thought “someone’s stuck a burr up his (Willis’s) backside).”
How does this apply here? England need to look for a captain who can hold their own with the bat, field well, and inspire those around him to world-class performances.
I don’t follow county cricket so I don’t have any candidates.
Then who is the Brearley in the England team today!
I really perfer the Imran Khan effect frankly. Imran was one of only two world class players Pakistan had in 1982, and he was named captain. 10 years later when he retired Pakistan was world champion. The Captain has to be the teams best player who leads from the front. KP fit the bill. Frankly Strauss dosn’t.
Most kind.
Sadly English cricket (like quite a few sports) is run by administrators who don’t have any good ideas, are stuck in the past and mainly want the ‘power’.
The English County system is effectively dead (who wants to watch a 3 or 4 day county game? :smack: ), but the Counties wield a veto over the national game.
So England struggles hopelessly to cope with one-day cricket / 20-20 cricket and the rise of India as the world power in cricket.
Whomever ECB chooses, it can’t be worse than or as out of field as Lee Germon.
That guy was’nt bad. I mean he had never played a test, but still.
Well, it looks like Andrew Strauss has got the poison chalice.
Pietersen remains an England Player and Moores has gone.
I wonder who the next coach will be?
Looks like Andy Flower is the frontrunner there. I tend to agree…I don’t think the ECB will plan to pick anybody outside of the current setup.
A more intriguing question is: who’s going to be the one-day captain? Strauss isn’t in the usual one-day side and I can’t see him being shoehorned in just to be captain as well. But then the ECB stated quite clearly that there would only be one England captain…it would be an embarrassing about-face to go back on that.
Look on the bright side. It could have been Derek Pringle. Fuckin’ tab bastard.
nasser hussein said that the teams best player should not be the captain. Gave the Shane Warne example.
So explain to me how this works: someone at the ECB first leaks the fact that Pietersen went to Clarke in the first place. The ECB then act outraged at the way Pietersen conducted the affair in public. Then, having forced Pietersen to resign as captain (having leaked their finding that several players disliked him), they now continue to leak information designed to sabotage Pietersen’s relationship with the new coach.
Make no mistake, this is a sporting body in full-on self-preservation mode, and it’s almost breathtaking in its counter-productivity. Only slightly less incredible is the apparent fact that several members of the team itself would rather dispense with the best batsman in the country, in favour of a coach who had overseen nothing but decline.
Still, at least the Wing Commander will instil a renewed sense of good chap-ness; that’ll be better than actually winning matches.