'Team must learn lessons from revelations'
Tuesday 14 October 2014 11:44, UK
Bob Willis says Kevin Pietersen’s revelations underline his belief England’s cricketers are ‘overly-mollycoddled, over-coached and can’t think for themselves’.
In Pietersen’s autobiography – which is released on Thursday – the batsman slams a number of former team-mates with accusations of bullying and criticises the culture cultivated by former director of cricket Andy Flower.
Graeme Swann moved quickly to brand the book ‘a work of fiction’ but Sky Cricket expert Wills told Sky Sports News HQ the issues raised must be addressed – and new ground rules must be established in the England dressing room.
Here’s Willis’ verdict on Pietersen – and a selection of his accusations.
The book makes the England dressing room out to be some sort of kindergarten.
The book makes the England dressing room out to be some sort of kindergarten rather than a group of professionals representing their national side. It underlines something that I’ve thought for a long time: these players are over-molly-coddled, over-coached, have too many backroom staff, not able to think for themselves. Because of all this backroom influence they can’t think for themselves and these little cliques form as a result of that.
There have been cliques in the England side ever since Nasser Hussain and Duncan Fletcher were running the England team; there were people who Fletcher liked and people who he didn’t like. The people he liked rallied around him and the captain and the others, perhaps the likes of Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff were in another camp. That does happen in dressing rooms. But if we’re to believe what Pietersen is telling us and what the ECB is telling us, there are little dictators all over the camp, which cannot be a good thing.
Kevin has found it impossible to get on with a succession of England coaches – he didn’t get on with Peter Moores, which caused his resignation, now he can’t get on with Andy Flower, one of the most phlegmatic and easy-going people I’ve ever come across.
Andy Flower had his philosophy, he had two captains, Andrew Strauss and then Alastair Cook, who are very disciplined, highly intelligent human beings who ploughed a furrow that Flower wanted them to follow. More individual people don’t like everybody doing the same thing and that’s where Kevin falls out with people. He’s a very talented cricketer and he’s been very helpful to other younger players in the team over the years but he doesn’t like toeing the party line.
I don’t think it’s ideal that players who are fielding their guts out for their country are put under more pressure when they make a mistake. The best thing to do when a player makes a mistake in the field – drops a catch or misfields – is for everybody to forget about it straight away, not bring it up at the next drinks break, or the next interval and go down on your knees and apologise to James Anderson because you’ve dropped a slip catch. We’re going back to the school yard here.
I think of all the revelations, this is probably the most astounding. Prior was labelled as the peace maker and the beginning of Pietersen’s re-integration into the team after the text-gate affair during the South Africa series. You can see how Strauss and Pietersen would have irretrievably fallen out about that business – it was unforgiveable and Pietersen says himself that was a bad mistake – but this ongoing feud seems to create an epidemic of ill feeling around the dressing room.
I don’t see how he can come back while Paul Downton is running England Cricket.
I don’t see how he can [come back] while Paul Downton is running England Cricket. Downton went into a lot of background of the last Ashes tour and he came to his conclusions. He had to apologise for saying Pietersen was a disruptive influence throughout the tour, but the ECB thought long and hard about appointing Downton and they’re not going to undermine his authority by giving a lifeline to Pietersen now.
And one has to be brutally honest and say Pietersen hasn’t done very much with the bat in the last 12 months. He’s been hawking himself around the Caribbean, he’s going to be playing in the Big Bash before Christmas, his IPL side, which he was notionally captain of, only won two of their matches and I don’t think Pietersen scored more than one half century. So his batting form doesn’t warrant any inclusion in any England side in any of the formats.
Pietersen is ego-driven – he motivates himself on the field and off it as well. He often speaks before he thinks on occasion – he’s given some terrible interviews over the years – but he’s spoken what he believes is a lot of good sense about his book – which has been brilliantly ghost-written and is an excellent read – but does one really want to be remembered for sniping endlessly at management and colleagues in the dressing room?
I’m sure there are other big egos in the dressing room, Graeme Swann was clearly one, but that isn’t any reason to think you can dictate terms in the dressing room. Clearly there is a sense of humour failure with Pietersen. The parody Twitter account didn’t go down well with KP – but as we’ve just seen James Milner do, in the soccer arena, laugh it off. But Kevin couldn’t do that.
I think there will be [changes in the England dressing room as a result]. They’ve got a new coach now, the side is in a development stage and everyone’s focus is on one-day cricket in the build-up to the World Cup - and this does not need to be swept under the carpet. They need some new ground rules about what is expected behaviour-wise by the players.
It was intimated Bell and Cook were the weaker characters in the dressing room, towing the party line, goody two-shoes if you like, and it’s the others who see their own agendas, who cause most of the ripples. But the ECB have decided Cook is their man, he’s going to be leading England into the World Cup and everybody must get behind him now and try to get the best atmosphere possible in the dressing room.
It’s clear the younger players who have come in during the summer and done well – Moeen Ali, Joe Root, Gary Ballance – must have been like a breath of fresh air to a stultified atmosphere that had been created – and is often created when a side gets hammered. And 5-0 in Australia is a severe hammering.
