life is what you make it.

Yesterday, the unthinkable happened. England dropped Kevin Pietersen. For now only for the third Test of the series against South Africa, and we'll have to wait and see where both parties go from here, but I believe it'll be tough for him to come back from this and to regain a place in this team which he's felt increasingly isolated in. Hearing the news yesterday has quite surprised me, because I would've expected those in charge to cave. To fall for his Youtube sob story trap and cave, as they've done numerous times in the past. Instead, they've finally made a decision, which couldn't have been easy for them, and I can only respect them for it.

Pietersen apologists continue to throw the ~fact that he was dropped because of texts, and texts only, at you when you dare to agree with his omission, citing a clear breach of trust for these private conversations to even have come to the ECB's knowledge. Call me crazy, but is the important thing really how they know or that they know? He was asked to provide the ECB with proof that he hadn't sent texts containing derogatory remarks about his captain to members of the opposition team (texts containing derogatory remarks, not just plain "hey, how's it going? i'm bored bru" texts) inside a clear timeframe, which the ECB also prolonged by a couple of hours to give him every opportunity to at least repair some of the damage, or even deny sending them altogether. He did neither, which implies he was in the wrong, and couldn't possibly be understood in any different way by Flower, Strauss and the ECB.

For me personally, those texts alone would've been reason enough to drop him, to at least suspend him for a Test or series. (And let's just remind ourselves again, that it's not about texting opposition players, but about the content of those texts.) But he also could've gotten the boot after his pathetic press conference at Headingley last Monday, where he blamed basically everyone and his dog for his misfortunes, when he's brought this all on himself. Or after he'd asked to play the full IPL and miss out on Test matches, while maintaining it wasn't about the money. Or after his retirement from one-day cricket. Or when he decided he didn't want to sign a contract with a county anymore. Or actually after the Moores affair back in 2009. Do we see a pattern here? Or is that my well-known reputation as a "KP hater" speaking?

According to Jonathan Agnew, publishing his interview on Youtube was a violation of his central contract, and ECB officials had actually asked him not to go ahead with it, yet he did it anyway ‒ retracting and contradicting literally everything he's said before (how credible), and for what? A lame last-ditch effort to get the public on his side, so they can run with the "he was dropped for texting" story. And judging by some of the comments in the past 24 hours, all I can say is: despite a regrettable lack of tears and wobbling bottom lips in the video, it's working.

The fact that the comments from Hugh Morris clearly identify the texts as one key point, indicating that there were others ‒ let's ignore that. Let's also ignore all his previous well-publicised transgressions that would barely fit on a toilet paper roll, especially and most recently his embarrassing press conference after the second Test in Leeds; let's ignore that he was told not to publish his self-serving PR stunt joke of a video interview but did it anyway; let's ignore that he did not only screw Peter Moores but also tried to screw Andy Flower with him; let's ignore that the majority of the team seem to not trust nor respect him anymore.

Actually, let's ignore everything and just focus on the fact that England have dropped their arguably best batsman for being able to operate a mobile phone after his arguably best innings at Headingley for the must-win Test at Lord's. Which, according to the overly dramatic Pietersen apologists, England are certain to lose, now that Pietersen is not playing. Just like the first Test at the Oval, which England lost by an innings and 12 runs without KP. Oh wait...

~

Having said all that, both sides have handled this mess in the worst possible way, and the ECB is heavily at fault as well, and has been for quite some time. They should've either reigned him in earlier or got rid of him earlier; letting him get away with all his antics and then sitting there thinking "We've created a monster!" reeks of The Sorcerer's Apprentice, and they should've known better. They should've known that this was never the right way to go about dealing with someone like Pietersen ‒ obviously a genius, obviously a flawed character. 

It's evident that Pietersen wasn't cut from the squad for Lord's over the texts only, and people who believe that are beyond naïve and should maybe consider getting real, but the ECB are clearly lacking the balls to come out and tell it like it really is. "We've overlooked all your crap, used you and your blatantly obvious, extraordinary talent for as long as we could, squeezed you like a lemon, and now that neither the team nor staff nor us armchair poopers can be bothered to put up with you anymore ‒ there's the door.", and maybe accompany that statement with a list of all the beautiful things Kevin Pietersen has put them through in the past eight years.

Wherever Kevin Pietersen went, controversy has been following him around. Fortunately, I'm not as blinkered to think that people haven't treated him wrongly during his career too (Swann's remarks, for example), but hearing him complain about the last couple of days having been demoralising for him and his family makes me cringe, because ‒ who caused this again? He called for coaches to be sacked, he put his signature under a central contract and retired from one-day cricket anyway knowing what the rules were, he listens to his celebrity friends more than to common sense, he couldn't get enough fame and glory and money and kept on demanding more, while completely overlooking that people like Andy Flower (or just recently Matt Prior) kept on bending over backwards to accommodate him and his Everest-sized ego, and he decided to burn the last of the already wonky bridges on August 6 at Headingley.

Love him or hate him, but staying true to himself, staying true to Kevin Pietersen always doing what's best for Kevin Pietersen, he should've wished for a different (preliminary) end to his England career than this soap opera. He should've wished to leave with a bang, a bang like his Leeds innings, a bang like clawing back the Test series against South Africa of all countries and holding on to the #1 spot ‒ a bang befitting of his talent and his larger-than-life persona.

self-absorbed. adjective. absorbed in your own interests.

Little addition to my piece on Kevin Pietersen's retirement from one-day cricket.

"I'd had enough of the schedule. I can't carry on doing everything. I play every single form of cricket that there is. I play the IPL and I've the Champions League in October. Apart from MS Dhoni, I've played the most days of international cricket over the past seven years. There comes a time when some form of the game has to be taken out of my schedule. One-day cricket was it.

It is a shame, but that is schedules we have. If the schedules weren't like that, or I played for another country where you had months and months occasionally to rest and recuperate, or if I had the opportunities to be rested things might be different. But you don't get those opportunities when you play for England. So I had to make a decision. You know what that decision is." (Source)

(Kevin Pietersen. Keeping It Real Since 1980.)

I'd like to work in a job where I get paid millions to travel all over the world and hit a ball around, where my biggest problem is that I don't get months off work. Apart from that, it isn't the ECB's problem that KP™ is playing in the IPL and Champions League (and it should never be). As far as I know, England had the months of November, December, February and almost the entire month of March off. So technically he's done a bit in January and at the end of March and then went to India to participate in the IPL where he's being paid ~$125,000 per week.

Yeah, I feel so sorry for you, you greedy sack of shit.

selfish. adjective. thinking only of oneself.

Those who follow me on Twitter will know that I harbour nothing but negative feelings towards Kevin Pietersen, and that I'm certainly happy to have him spoil only Test cricket for me in the future instead of all three formats. The entertainment value he allegedly adds to the game never managed to overshadow my intense dislike of him and his stinker attitude. Despite all that, if the timing of KP's sudden retirement of international one-day cricket - or as I like to call it "KP doing whatever it takes to be the #1 trending topic worldwide" - hadn't been so peculiar, I'd may well be saying that we should let the man earn his cash if he's gagging for it this badly. But since he mistimed his actions so spectacularly, I can't find it in me to be this generous.

Let's think the best of him, against every fibre of my being, and assume he did ask the ECB to be rested from the ODI series against Australia (if the players even wash up on the UK shores), and they turned him down. Seems highly unlikely, since the Blazers usually do anything for KP, but let's roll with it. The Blazers then told him to either play through the summer or retire - couldn't he have gutsed it out (if playing one-dayers really is such a hardship), participated in the T20 World Cup and then retired directly into the CLT20 and the Big Bash?

Instead, it seems as if he wanted to screw the ECB for how they handled the Moores affair and his Twitter outbursts, as if he wanted to settle who's whose daddy in this never-ending soap opera once and for all. Regardless of whether the ECB's ruling of players having to be available for all limited over formats or none makes sense or not, he knew about said ruling all along - and he retired from one-day cricket anyway. Probably with the petty intention of testing whether the ECB were willing to make the umpteenth concession to the Great KP and His Even Greater Ego, because moving Craig Kieswetter down the order to give His Highness more time at the crease (and to Kieswetter's clear disadvantage) simply wasn't enough. And even though it meant depriving England of their prime limited-overs batsman, this time around someone decided to stand his ground (for now) and let him go.

Yes, English cricket has profited from his contributions over the years, but those benefits definitely went and still go both ways. Was playing a dozen one-day matches this summer for the country that welcomed him and the organization that's been been bending over backwards for him and allowed him to turn his indisputable talent and c*nty persona into millions (!) of pounds really too much to ask? I don't think so. Yet, he decided to go down this road, and he and his camp will simply need to deal with the consequences for the brand KP™, step away from Twitter and stop blaming others for a choice he made of his own free will.

For some inexplicable reason, I've never quite rated him as a team player, and by acting like this, he's only proved to me that he's exactly the selfish knob I always believed him to be. With the vast majority of players, especially players who are already on the wrong side of 30, I wouldn't begrudge them wanting to earn big(ger) money for a second. But when it comes to KP, all his slightly desperate and slightly worthless declarations of loyalty and love and whatever else to the cause of English cricket not to mention the damn tattoo spring to mind, which makes his clearly non-essential (i.e. not forced by injury) retirement so impossible to deal with.

Way too many people, fans and journalists alike, complain about the ECB treating 20- and 50-over cricket as basically the same - and completely miss the point. The ECB are trying to protect the one-day game by making sure that their most talented players don't opt out of playing it, which as long as it's still around and World Cups are being held, is what every board should be doing and what supporters should be encouraging. Sure, Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott don't play Twenty20 cricket, but they've never retired from the shortest form and are technically still available - they're just not being selected due to their more conservative approach to batting not being required in Twenty20. And if people don't want to get that, they should buy a Melbourne Renegades Membership - KP will turn out for them next winter.

Whether there's too much cricket being played or not, whether there's too much one-day cricket being played or not, that's a discussion for another day. People can believe that KP did what he had to do for a higher cause, that he sacrificed himself for the greater good of English cricket, and that it had nothing to do with money whatsoever, but I'm never going to buy into it; and thankfully, I'm not alone in that. Kevin Pietersen only ever thinks of what's best for Kevin Pietersen, and his decision to retire now and throw England's limited overs teams and their inexperienced captains to the wolves in the lead-up to the T20 World Cup and a possible title defence is yet another act of a self-serving prima donna, who is now free to go and earn his cash wherever he wants to buy himself all the lip balm and loafers in the world.


(And I sincerely hope the door hit him on his way out.)