KP: Story of a Genius

His performances in his first series in South Africa for that one day series was simply phenomenal, think it was 3 hundreds ,all against crowds that booed his every moment.

Does not get mentioned enough and does not get enough credit for that series imo.

He was one of those players you just had to pick and forced his way into the test side, before the 2005 ashes series people I remember were saying we should not drop Thorpe for him, but KP was that good he simply had to play!

Not doubting his talent, however too many fallouts with too many people though, to not form a opinion that he was a bit of a wanker like!
 
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A no doubt difficult character with a big ego who was very very poorly managed imo.

KP was the first player of his kind that the ECB had to deal with and they made a complete mess of it.

Not that it does KP any good now but it seems the ECB have since learned lessons from how was handled and are much more accommodating towards the different franchise leagues around the globe.

I’m sure KP mustve had a wry smile to himself when Morgan the ODI skipper was allowed to miss an ODI in order to play in the IPL.

Slagging off his captain to players from opposition was poor however I’d be amazed if he’s the only one who has ever done that. I’m pretty sure Botham would’ve had a few less than complimentary words for the ECB when he was over in the Caribbean with Viv and Joel as one example.

The tactical information stuff was a joke. A blind man on a galloping horse could’ve told you how to get Strauss out at that time.
 
Definitely no smoke without fire with regards the dressing room bullying, Trott mentioned it in his autobiography and I can imagine Swann being a smart arse and Broad being a real sulky kid, but Pietersen certainly has his flaws and questions have to be asked as to why he managed to fall out with pretty much every dressing room he was in.

Fantastic talent and one of the few batsmen I'd have paid to watch, but my lass watched the full series with me and without any prior knowledge on the subject came to the conclusion that he appeared arrogant and difficult to like. I don't think she's far from the truth.
 
Swann, Anderson, Broad & Prior clearly had a bit of a head boys gang going on within in the team.
I'm not sure how much of that I believe - the era that Pietersen moans about is where Strauss was captain and we achieved the goal of being no.1 ranked side in the world. Could that really be achieved with cliques and a culture of bullying? If anything, I believe that Strauss led a settled and competitive side, but Pietersen was an outsider and/or the butt of some jokes within the dressing room largely based on his ego/character/persona

What was the quote on the episode 1? "He fell in love with himself at 16 and to be fair he's stayed faithful ever since...."

Tells you all you need to know about Pietersen - desperate to be loved but his arrogance made that difficult so he played the role of bullied victim
 
I'm not sure how much of that I believe - the era that Pietersen moans about is where Strauss was captain and we achieved the goal of being no.1 ranked side in the world. Could that really be achieved with cliques and a culture of bullying? If anything, I believe that Strauss led a settled and competitive side, but Pietersen was an outsider and/or the butt of some jokes within the dressing room largely based on his ego/character/persona

What was the quote on the episode 1? "He fell in love with himself at 16 and to be fair he's stayed faithful ever since...."

Tells you all you need to know about Pietersen - desperate to be loved but his arrogance made that difficult so he played the role of bullied victim

Hard to tell either way who’s making the most out of the situation. I wouldn’t rule out Pietersen being the massive helmet or the other massive helmet Swann being the head boy ringleader.

Ultimately all good things come to an end though and the relationships in the dressing room between certain players were the catalyst for the downfall of that team.
 
I'm not sure how much of that I believe - the era that Pietersen moans about is where Strauss was captain and we achieved the goal of being no.1 ranked side in the world. Could that really be achieved with cliques and a culture of bullying? If anything, I believe that Strauss led a settled and competitive side, but Pietersen was an outsider and/or the butt of some jokes within the dressing room largely based on his ego/character/persona

What was the quote on the episode 1? "He fell in love with himself at 16 and to be fair he's stayed faithful ever since...."

Tells you all you need to know about Pietersen - desperate to be loved but his arrogance made that difficult so he played the role of bullied victim
Although some of them singing "I've never met a nice South African" wouldn't have helped.
 
I’m far from convinced with the bullying stuff and think that’s KP being a little overly precious but one thing that can’t be overlooked is the jealousy factor. KP was box office, we were number 1 in world but it was only KP who was attracting the big money offers from the IPL which seemed the catalyst for a lot of the troubles that followed. Perhaps if an Anderson, broad, Swann or prior were in demand he may have found himself an ally but they weren’t and in a dressing room of top level sportsman with big egos that won’t have went down well.

KP was undoubtedly a selfish player who was more interested in his own glory than the teams but its that selfishness and single mindedness that made him one of if not the greatest English batsman of all time and also won us a lot of test matches.

As Vaughan said he had a habit of producing at the biggest moments just when it was required. It’s not always about how many runs you score but when you score them and KP would produce when it mattered.
 
Think the Aussies had him sussed from the start. Their nickname for him was FIGJAM: Fuck I’m Good Just Ask Me. Summed him up perfectly.

He was on League of their own Road Trip and Flintoff ribbed him mercilessly throughout. KP came across as having no sense of humour and a complete inability to laugh at himself.

Good player though!
 

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