It is the history of the cricketer that forms people's opinions. Collingwood is classed as a dogged fighter because there have been countless examples of him digging his side out of trouble through sheer hard graft. Bell, until recently, had not proved he could perform on a consistent basis when it was absolutely necessary, so people would always pigeon-hole him into the soft category. Understandable, although an allegation I was confident he would overcome.
Absolutely mate, there are a number of such examples.
Ok, lets talk about the home series against SA then. The stage was set for him in the 2nd innings at Edgbaston, when he made 94 in the 2nd dig, to play a match winning knock and take the game away from South Africa but he ended up playing arguably one of the worst shots of his career with serious consequences that ultimately cost England (and Collingwood) the game and the series.
Yes and 94 is a complete failure ??? He continued to bat positively, whether he's 94 or 24, that's how he plays. Don't think you can isolate a particular shot and say he failed on the big stage. Worse shot of his career ? Do me a favour. What about his 152 in the first Test of that series, his first Test against his homeland, at Lords ?? Hey, it's probably convenient if we forget that one.
Indeed, was a pretty big stage. Anyways, my point is not that he is a bad player on the big stage. Just that hes not as good as he is made out to be. I think there are others that perform just as frequently on the big stage - for example collingwood, but with Pietersen it is every time he performs is considered to be on 'the big stage' and every time he fails it is considered an 'inconsequential' series.
No but you brought up that series as an example of him performing on the big stage. I'm just pointing out that perhaps when the stage was set for a big 'Pietersen innings' he disappointed. In the grand scheme of things that was a pivotal moment in the match.
Yeah, that 2nd dig was all Pietersen's fault. We'll just ignore Strauss, Cook, Vaughan and Bell making 71 runs between them.
Thats not the point I'm getting at here. It wasn't Pietersen's fault that England lost, but much like Michael Clarke's innings yesterday it was necessary for him and Collingwood to get a big score in order for England to have a chance in the game. In that sense, his dismissal was a job half done.
You're still ignoring the series opener, at Lords, against South Africa, for KP it probably doesn't get much bigger than that, except for the Ashes. Yet he smashed 152 and set England up in a winning position of which we could not quite capitalise. First game as captain is undoubtedly huge also, and he scored another ton. You can kinda see where people get the 'big occasion' thing from.
Look, I dont ignore it, that was a big knock my point isnt that KP is a dismal failure in big match situations. Its just that hes had a few performances on the big stage, not much more than any other quality player, just that these performances are all blown out of proportion simply because its 1)KP and 2) because of the tag that was given to him at the start of his career where he had a string of performances in big match situations.
**** he's good just ask him
Yes, to be fair to KP, in the winter he rolled up in SA after being out for months, with injury and with it being winter, had no chance to bat at all and find any kind of form what so ever.
Against this attack he should be upset if he hasn't got his average back over 50 by the end of the series.
Pietersen needs 124 runs in his next innings to bring his average back to 50. Plausible. He'll need another 50 runs on top of that for each time he gets out this series, so for example if he's out 4 times out of the maximum of 6, he'd need 274 more runs in the series. (Also plausible).
