Rank the English batsmen

[tooextracool]

interesting post but what about KP? Where would you put him?

Below the 3 of them. KP is the only one out of the 4 of them to have failed against both SA and the Pak attack from last summer. AFAIC, as impressive as his batting was against India it was against buffet bowling.

 

[GIMH]

Pietersen has succeeded against Saffa before now though, and also averaged 50+ against the ATG Aussie attack

 

[tooextracool]

Pietersen has succeeded against Saffa before now though, and also averaged 50+ against the ATG Aussie attack

Both are irrelevant. The SA bowling that toured England in 2008 was a bit of a joke, Kallis was the best bowler on the tour and that says a lot (no disrespect to Kallis) about the quality of bowlers as well as the quality of English batting that summer.

He has succeeded against Australia but that was half a decade ago so we really need to stop bringing that up at the moment. There's a genuine question about his ability to face the swinging ball if you ask me and as players like Sehwag have showed, scoring runs in Australia (on largely flat pitches) is a vastly different, whilst not necessarily easier, proposition to scoring runs in South Africa or even against quality attacks in England.

Either way, I am a massive fan of the way he played against India and the odds are that if he continues in that vein he is likely to be quite successful in the future. The reality though is that one swallow (against an average bowling side) doesn't make up for essentially 3 years of mediocrity, and perhaps the series against SA next summer might go a long way to change the perspective about that.

 

[Jacknife]

Where do you get 3 years of mediocrity from, KP's problems as such go back to 2009 when he got injured but even in that year he averaged 48, the only years he's really struggled was last year but still managed to average 42. This year he's played really well pretty much all year and has averaged 73.
The same criticisms of KP you could put to Cook, has trouble against the moving ball and has plundered runs against poor attacks and until very recently Cook was averaging just over 40, whereas KP even during his off form times, he always maintained a average of around 50. Surely if he had a genuine problem against the moving ball he wouldn't be averaging 55 at home in England, I just think that a little bit too much has been made of KP's supposed problems while he's been out of form.
As far as that tour to SA, KP should have never been picked for it and was always going to struggle after going out their still looking unfit and not played a game of cricket in 5 months.

 

[tooextracool]

Where do you get 3 years of mediocrity from, KP's problems as such go back to 2009 when he got injured but even in that year he averaged 48, the only years he's really struggled was last year but still managed to average 42. This year he's played really well pretty much all year and has averaged 73.
The same criticisms of KP you could put to Cook, has trouble against the moving ball and has plundered runs against poor attacks and until very recently Cook was averaging just over 40, whereas KP even during his off form times, he always maintained a average of around 50. Surely if he had a genuine problem against the moving ball he wouldn't be averaging 55 at home in England, I just think that a little bit too much has been made of KP's supposed problems while he's been out of form.
As far as that tour to SA, KP should have never been picked for it and was always going to struggle after going out their still looking unfit and not played a game of cricket in 5 months.

You are right, it is 2 years. This is the period I was referring to:

Batting records | Test matches | Cricinfo Statsguru | ESPN Cricinfo

Anyways, 1 100 in 2 years (17 test period) is fairly poor return from any player. The record looks good against Australia, but the reality is that the 227 is the only meaningful innings he played against them. Given the circumstances of that innings - it was really a largely pressure-less knock - his record against Australia in the 9 innings outside of that one is piss poor.