Pietersen Resigns

PeterCS wrote:BTW: Happy Birthday for Friday WS.

Allan D wrote:Strauss is a safe pair of hands to take England out of this train wreck and I think of him as the latter-day Colin Cowdrey who also took over a Caribbean tour in 1967 (also prior to an Ashes summer) after Brian Close had been sacked as England captain for time-wasting in a CC match, although despite his impeccable establishment credentials the powers-that-be were oddly averse to him as captain, considering him over-cautious, and never entrusted him with an Ashes tour and I think the same prejudice extends to AJS, his uninspired batting and failure to press home the advantage on the Monday of the Lord's Test against Pakistan in 2006 is still held against him in some quarters and probably cost him the chance of captaining Down Under the following winter (which turned out to be a blessing in disguise given the circumstances) but short of a 4-0 defeat against the Windies Strauss seems assured of leading England in the home Ashes series this summer.

Less certain is the captaincy of the ODI and 20-20 sides (important given the 20-20 championship in England this summer which will attract as much, if not more, public attention than the Ashes Tests) which was the glaring omission from Morris' statement at The Oval this evening. As the one-day squad has already been picked I cannot see how it can be unpicked to accommodate Strauss (with a batsman being left out). Therefore another player, other than KP, from the selected squad has to be named as a replacement when the time comes (presumably in consultation with Flower, or whoever acts as interim coach on the WI tour).

Flintoff in the Caribbean equals pedalo so I think we can overlook him, Collingwood as one-day captain equals slow over rates whilst he ponders the situation resulting in a 4-match suspension so he can be discarded. The only name that pops out is Owais Shah who captained at U-19 level and took over from AJS as Middlesex captain for the remainder of the 2004 season when he was picked for England. Shah is one of the most improved of England cricketers at least at ODI level which has been in the doldrums for a considerable period of time (it showed little improvement during the Fletcher-Hussain regime and, apart from a brief flurry against the South Africans at the end of last summer, has gone from bad to worse under Pietersen-Moores beginning with the Stanford debacle).

As for Strauss' v-c, if he does well on the Lions' tour and maintains his form in the English summer the obvious candidate, who scored a double-century against the Windies on their penultimate tour here and who could be easily slotted into the present side at No.3, is that best-beloved cricketer of this forum, RWT Key.

On a trivial note, Strauss is the second Old Radleian to captain England, the first being "Lord" Ted Dexter, the second graduate of Durham University after Nasser Hussain, the fourth captain to be born in South Africa after Greig, Lamb and Pietersen and the 11th, after Calthorpe, Wyatt, Cranston, Hutton, Cowdrey, Denness, Botham, Gooch, Lamb and Atherton to make his overseas debut as captain in the Caribbean. His last match as captain was the "forfeit" match against Pakistan at The Oval in 2006.

Big_Bad_Bob wrote:Aye - truly awful viewing.

We'll continue to fark it up one way or another while the cretin twins Morris and Clarke continue to cosy up to each other and reassure each other they are still the men for the job.

Merlin wrote:
Also agree about RWT Key.
It's time this guy got a really lengthy shot at test cricket - and if Kent's Ford gets the nod as the next coach, who knows .... that might just happen.

Big_Bad_Bob wrote:

Merlin wrote:
Also agree about RWT Key.
It's time this guy got a really lengthy shot at test cricket - and if Kent's Ford gets the nod as the next coach, who knows .... that might just happen.

Aaaagh . . . and we might get Pillock back behind the pegs!

Eric Air Emu wrote:

Big_Bad_Bob wrote:Aye - truly awful viewing.

We'll continue to fark it up one way or another while the cretin twins Morris and Clarke continue to cosy up to each other and reassure each other they are still the men for the job.

It's not too late for the old violent flaming bails coup you know. We really should be running English cricket. Sure the players won't be happy (except Scott Newman who will be opening the batting) and people will question our business and cricket experience but our hearts are pure and f*ck me if a bunch of sipahilitic crazed chimps aren't betterthan the current incumbents.

Allan D wrote:... The only name that pops out is Owais Shah who captained at U-19 level and took over from AJS as Middlesex captain for the remainder of the 2004 season when he was picked for England. Shah is one of the most improved of England cricketers at least at ODI level which has been in the doldrums for a considerable period of time (it showed little improvement during the Fletcher-Hussain regime and, apart from a brief flurry against the South Africans at the end of last summer, has gone from bad to worse under Pietersen-Moores beginning with the Stanford debacle).

Henry wrote:
Fred's opinions are overrated, imo. There always seems to be whispers that he's unhappy with someone or something. I remember when he had his ankle injury, we heard talk of how his "people" were unhappy that England weren't selecting him as a specialist batsman.

He's a fine, fine cricketer and a top bloke, but he does seem to like his England set-ups to be a little too cozy.