Ashes 2013/14
Ghostly echoes of 2009
February 4th 2014
The
aftershocks from the disastrous Ashes tour continue. The Australians were not
displeased to have destabilised England to the point of seeing Trott and Finn
sent home and Graeme Swann into retirement. The Test series ended with rumours
that, in an eerie echo of 2009, the coach had said “either he goes or I go”.
Back in 2009, Peter Moores was sacked as England coach and Kevin Pietersen as
England captain just two weeks before a tour to the Caribbean. England’s
results had been depressing for several years and, rather than address the
decline seen at the end of Duncan Fletcher’s reign, Peter Moores just seemed to
make it worse. However, the killer was a massive personality clash between
coach and captain that, rather than finishing one of the two, ended in a case
of Mutual Assured Destruction.
Emergency captain – Andrew Strauss,
who had just barely saved his England career in New Zealand – temporary coach
and shot out for 51 to lose the 1st Test and the series. Three
months later, an Australian side who suddenly thought that England would be
soft opposition, as in 2006/07, received a rude shock. By a happy chance
England got the captain who they should have appointed in 2006 and the coach that
they had needed desperately to harness the available talent. England would love
to think that Mutual Assured Destruction (2014 version) will end as happily.
In an eerie echo of what happened
five years ago, first the coach has gone and now Kevin Pietersen too, although
this time not the same day. Pietersen will not be considered either
for the limited overs tour of the Caribbean, or the World T20. In short, his
career is over.
Much has been made of the fact that
he was England’s leading runscorer in Australia, although he had a poor series,
passing fifty just twice and averaging under 30, which was still five more than
his captain averaged, while only Michael Carberry faced more balls in the
series.
There are plenty of comments that
Kevin Pietersen batted irresponsibly in Australia – not that many of the others
have anything to boast about in that respect – and that he had been a divisive
influence in the dressing room. However, no one has come forward with any details of what he did that was so
destabilising to the team. When Andrew Flintoff was relieved of the captaincy
in 2006, we heard the grisly details of his drunken exploits in a pedalo.
During the textgate scandal, we found out probably more than we wanted to about
KP’s texting. Now, we hear nothing apart from an unconfirmed report in an
Australian newspaper (not above a little mischief-making, as we have seen) that
Cook and Pietersen had a heated row in the members’ bar at the SCG on the eve
of the 5th Test – not the sort of place where you can have a
discrete blazing row without anyone other than an Australian journalist finding
out!!
It is fair enough that changes need
to be made and that some unpleasant decisions have to be taken, but singling
out one player without explaining why is hardly going to make things better.
The sound that you can hear is of
twenty three million Australians laughing themselves sick as English cricket
rips itself apart…
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