Trouble in the English camp : Pietersen Vs Moores!?

[Richard]

Gus Fraser reckons KP will be telling his version of events in this week's News of the World, which may make some fairly fascinating/gruesome reading.

Don't know whether to laugh or cry, really. Guess I should cry, then read the various reports on said version (I don't and won't buy said paper), then laugh I suppose.

 

[four_or_six]

No coach neccessarily plays any part in a 5-0 whitewash. No coach can neccessarily do one single thing to avoid a 5-0 whitewash.

Once might wonder, in that case, what the heck he's being paid all that money for. If he's not participating in affecting the results of the team.

 

[Martin1]

Moores had to go and Pietersen had to go also if the whole team didn't support him as seems the case. But I have no confidence in Strauss as a captain. I think this day will go down as the day we lost the Ashes. If I was Australian I would be jumping for joy at this news.

 

[zaremba]

I enjoyed reading KP's statement where he asserted that he had not resigned until 5.15pm this afternoon, and that the news reports of his demise that had been circulating since about 9.30am had been inaccurate, but in light of those reports his position was now untenable and he felt he had to resign. So, KP, how does it feel to be subjected to "sacking by media"? A delicious little irony given his attempts to inflict precisely that on Peter Moores.

I think today's events have given a pretty definitive answer to those who've suggested in recent days that KP's approach was going to prove anything other than disastrous.

I'm very pleased that Strauss' position in the team is secure enough to allow him to be appointed as captain. He is precisely what's needed right now. He might also make a decent long-term captain - let's hope that the team (and obviously KP in particular) gives him the support he needs. As I've said in a previous post, I couldn't care less whether he would otherwise get into the ODI or T20 teams. He should captain in those formats too. He's a good player and so won't be a complete passenger in those formats and anyway I don't think I'd really mind if we lost every ODI and T20 match we played provided we won the Test series.

 

[aussie]

In one word, Weird..

 

[zaremba]

No coach neccessarily plays any part in a 5-0 whitewash. No coach can neccessarily do one single thing to avoid a 5-0 whitewash.

So Duncan Fletcher was a great coach, England should never have got rid of him, he won us the Ashes, he was full of innovative ideas etc and, best of all, when he got hammered 5-0 he can escape responsibility on the basis that it was nothing to do with him. He sounds like a truly extraordinary man.

 

[Manee]

Once might wonder, in that case, what the heck he's being paid all that money for. If he's not participating in affecting the results of the team.

I believe that this is where the issue lies. A coach can only do so much once a squad has been selected and a team is in a series. There is far too much credence and financial benefit given to the national head coach, who should, imo, do little more than lead the set of specialist coaches and backroom which a team possesses and also play a part as a selector who provides an actual insight into "how the team have been shaping up in the nets" as well as acting perhaps as a mentor to the team. The national coach is not going to tell Ian Bell to take a leg stump guard, after which he is guaranteed a hundred as this sort of work should be done at national academies; the coaches of whom should be those gaining the most prestige and such instantaneous results are unrealistic - expecting a return on most changes to a batsman or bowlers technique can take weeks or months - this period of time which should be spent away from international competition and likely in the winter.

On to my point about national academies; I believe this is an area where there has been very little media coverage and it is an extremely short termist viewpoint. Cricket is a sport in which massive improvements can be made through work in the winter and where the talent has the potential to be produced rather than purely born brilliant and yet everyone is quite happy to place the focus on the coach of the team, who is merely supposed to fine tune talent in infintecimally subtle areas, a large deal of the time.

 

[zaremba]

I believe that this is where the issue lies. A coach can only do so much once a squad has been selected and a team is in a series. There is far too much credence and financial benefit given to the national head coach, who should, imo, do little more than lead the set of specialist coaches and backroom which a team possesses and also play a part as a selector who provides an actual insight into "how the team have been shaping up in the nets" as well as acting perhaps as a mentor to the team. The national coach is not going to tell Ian Bell to take a leg stump guard, after which he is guaranteed a hundred as this sort of work should be done at national academies; the coaches of whom should be those gaining the most prestige and such instantaneous results are unrealistic - expecting a return on most changes to a batsman or bowlers technique can take weeks or months - this period of time which should be spent away from international competition and likely in the winter.

On to my point about national academies; I believe this is an area where there has been very little media coverage and it is an extremely short termist viewpoint. Cricket is a sport in which massive improvements can be made through work in the winter and where the talent has the potential to be produced rather than purely born brilliant and yet everyone is quite happy to place the focus on the coach of the team, who is merely supposed to fine tune talent in infintecimally subtle areas, a large deal of the time.

Good post, and good points.

However I'm sure you'd agree that when a head coach has been in place for several years, he must bear at least some responsibility for results. And when you're at the helm as your team surrenders the Ashes 5-0, you should fully expect to have to lose your job.

 

[Manee]

However I'm sure you'd agree that when a head coach has been in place for several years, he must bear at least some responsibility for results. And when you're at the helm as your team surrenders the Ashes 5-0, you should fully expect to have to lose your job.

I probably would be inclined to agree as a coach is to be held responsible for such a regression of ability. This being said, him being held responsible does not mean it necessarily his fault or deficiency in coaching as sometimes a regime becomes stale and the players consequently complacent merely through the passage of time.

 

[zaremba]

I probably would be inclined to agree as a coach is to be held responsible for such a regression of ability. This being said, him being held responsible does not mean it necessarily his fault or deficiency in coaching as sometimes a regime becomes stale and the players consequently complacent merely through the passage of time.

If that's right, that's another good reason to change the coach imo.

 

[Manee]

If that's right, that's another good reason to change the coach imo.

Agreed. It is all a very 'shades of grey' affair when holding a coach responsible for team performance.

 

[Richard]

Once might wonder, in that case, what the heck he's being paid all that money for. If he's not participating in affecting the results of the team.

Who knows why coaches are paid such high salaries. I guess it's the stress of the job; people intimating you have powers which you do not.

 

[Richard]

So Duncan Fletcher was a great coach, England should never have got rid of him, he won us the Ashes, he was full of innovative ideas etc and, best of all, when he got hammered 5-0 he can escape responsibility on the basis that it was nothing to do with him. He sounds like a truly extraordinary man.

I neither subscribed to the "Duncan Fletcher is wonderful because he won us The Ashes in 2005" nor the "Duncan Fletcher is an idiot because lost us a 0-5 whitewash in The Ashes in 2006/07". I'd made-up my mind loooooooong before either series, based not on results but on what his players said about him and about how my own eyes perceived the players reacting to him.

It's ridiculously unfair (or perhaps ridiculously OTT, depending) to judge a coach by the results of the team he coaches (unfair or OTT depending on the results being good or bad). Is Dav Whatmore suddenly now a dud because of his time at Bangladesh? Of course he isn't. Is John Buchanan the greatest coach in history because he masterminded one of the best Australian teams ever for a long period? Of course not (although he was pretty ideal for the team at the time they had him, his methods might well fail to work in many other circumstances). The players are the ones who get the results; the coach can merely get the best out of the players he has.

There was much to recommend Duncan Fletcher as a "head of the team" figure, the "janitor of the house" as Scyld Berry so aptly described him in Wisden 2004. Even if there was also precious little to recommend him as a selector (he made errors there all through his tenure, though in his defence no more or fewer than other selectors for both his own team and other teams, at each of the same time, before and after).

 

[zaremba]

It's ridiculously unfair to judge a coach by the results of the team he coaches.

Er no it isn't. No-one's suggesting you can fairly measure a coach's performance solely by results, particularly without reference to the strength of the players with whom he's working.

But results are an important part of the way in which you measure their performance. The whole point of having a coach is, self-evidently, to get better results. If you have good players and achieve bad results, that is something you'd take into account when judging the coach's performance.

 

[Richard]

I'm very pleased that Strauss' position in the team is secure enough to allow him to be appointed as captain. He is precisely what's needed right now. He might also make a decent long-term captain - let's hope that the team (and obviously KP in particular) gives him the support he needs. As I've said in a previous post, I couldn't care less whether he would otherwise get into the ODI or T20 teams. He should captain in those formats too. He's a good player and so won't be a complete passenger in those formats and anyway I don't think I'd really mind if we lost every ODI and T20 match we played provided we won the Test series.

I too am pleased with Strauss' selection, and believe he can do the job in the Test series in West Indies, and believe he could easily be a good option for the next 3-4 years. However, I don't take the view that "hang the ODI team", nor that it doesn't matter if Strauss captains that format. As I've said a good few times, my worry is that having the ODI job will damage Strauss' ability to do the Test job. Strauss is a very poor one-day batsman, has always been such a thing, and if he is given the ODI captaincy the pressure will be on him, more than ever before, to try to get better at that format. And we've already seen what's happened to him when he's tried to do that - he's gotten worse at the Test format. And the Test team right now and for the next 4 years needs Strauss to bat in Test cricket exactly as he's done for the previous 8 months, and no different.

I think those who take the "well Strauss can't be all that bad in ODIs can he?" mentality are suffering from least-happened-soonest-mended syndrome. Go back 2 years and it was plain for all to see that Strauss was woefully short of the requirements in ODIs. I think that because Strauss hasn't played a ODI for ages, people've forgotten how bad he is at them.

 

[Richard]

Er no it isn't. No-one's suggesting you can fairly measure a coach's performance solely by results, particularly without reference to the strength of the players with whom he's working.

But results are an important part of the way in which you measure their performance. The whole point of having a coach is, self-evidently, to get better results. If you have good players and achieve bad results, that is something you'd take into account when judging the coach's performance.

To me, the point of having a coach is to get the best possible output out of the players. To suggest that Duncan Fletcher failed to do that in 2006/07 wouldn't be unreasonable, but to suggest he has any enormous responsibility for the 5-0 scoreline would, to my mind, be plain wrong, any more than to suggest he was one of the biggest hands in the 2005 victory.

I think that over Duncan Fletcher's career he got one hell of a lot out of one hell of a lot of players than an inferior coach (or manager) would not have done. That, to my mind, makes him very good at the job.

The only people who I judge by the results are the players. I judge the coach by what I think he's done with those players who get the results (and perhaps by what he hasn't done with players both who do and don't get the results). If I think he could've done no more, I won't attach any blame whatsoever to the coach. If I think he could've done plenty more, regardless of whether the results be good or bad, I'll attach blame aplenty to him.

 

[zaremba]

I too am pleased with Strauss' selection, and believe he can do the job in the Test series in West Indies, and believe he could easily be a good option for the next 3-4 years. However, I don't take the view that "hang the ODI team", nor that it doesn't matter if Strauss captains that format. As I've said a good few times, my worry is that having the ODI job will damage Strauss' ability to do the Test job. Strauss is a very poor one-day batsman, has always been such a thing, and if he is given the ODI captaincy the pressure will be on him, more than ever before, to try to get better at that format. And we've already seen what's happened to him when he's tried to do that - he's gotten worse at the Test format. And the Test team right now and for the next 4 years needs Strauss to play exactly as he's played for the previous 8 months, and no different.

I'm not convinced that the cause of his dip in form can be attributed neatly to him trying to change his game for One Day purposes. He's always played one day cricket throughout his career, both for Mddx and in ODIs before and concurrently with his incredibly successful start to Test cricket. And I don't know what you mean about his Test form suffering when he "tries to get better at the OD format" - I would imagine he's always trying to get better at that format.

Besides, I thought you felt that form in ODI cricket is irrelevant to form in Test cricket? If that's right then I'd be surprised if Strauss' efforts to improve his ODI game could have a dramatic negative influence on his performance in Test cricket.

Anyhow, for the time being, at least, he needs to captain in both forms. We need stability for the next few months and that wouldn't be helped by taking 2 captains to the Caribbean.

 

[Richard]

I'm not convinced that the cause of his dip in form can be attributed neatly to him trying to change his game for One Day purposes. He's always played one day cricket throughout his career, both for Mddx and in ODIs before and concurrently with his incredibly successful start to Test cricket. And I don't know what you mean about his Test form suffering when he "tries to get better at the OD format" - I would imagine he's always trying to get better at that format.

Besides, I thought you felt that form in ODI cricket is irrelevant to form in Test cricket? If that's right then I'd be surprised if Strauss' efforts to improve his ODI game could have a dramatic negative influence on his performance in Test cricket.

I feel that ODI prowess is irrelevant to Test prowess, and ditto in reverse. That being good at one should not, in itself, make anyone think there is any reason you'd be good at the other.

However, it's a given that the two don't exist in different universes. A player is the same person. What was it that made Strauss so poor in Tests in 2006 and 2007 (and early-2008)? Driving. Far, far too much driving at balls outside off that weren't Half-Volleys. That to me bears the classic hallmark of someone who's tried to get better at one-day batting, because you have to be able to drive on-the-up to succeed there. Can I be certain that the problems were related to trying to get better at ODIs? Of course I can't, not close. However, that seems to me to be a cause more likely than anything else I can think of. Can you suggest to me a better reason why Strauss became so poor in his play at deliveries outside off in those two-and-a-bit years?

Some batsmen are capable of playing in two totally different ways in the two game-forms. But some aren't. Strauss doesn't look to me to be so. I think he needs a nice, uncomplicated method that works in Test cricket, and I don't want to see ODIs even being given the chance to damage his Test credentials, because the Strauss of the previous 8 months (and his first 14 months in Test cricket) is a massive asset to England's Test team. A massive asset.

Anyhow, for the time being, at least, he needs to captain in both forms. We need stability for the next few months and that wouldn't be helped by taking 2 captains to the Caribbean.

And what's more, I can't see anyone who'd not be almost as bad an option as Strauss (in ODIs).

 

[zaremba]

Can you suggest to me a better reason why Strauss became so poor in his play at deliveries outside off in those two-and-a-bit years?

I don't pretend to know why his form dipped and there's probably not a nice, conveniently packaged answer. And if there is such an answer, we're too far away from his mind to have a clue what it is.

The point is, it seems to me irrational to think that the reason is that he suddenly tried to get better at OD batting. Was he not trying to get better at that previously? Has he stopped trying to get better at it now? If his problem was driving too much in Test cricket, the natural answer seems not to be to give up ODI cricket but to exercise more self-discipline in Test cricket and to cut out the drives or at least use them more judiciously.

 

[tooextracool]

The idea that Strauss' test game was hurt by him playing ODIs is about as believable as the idea that Monty's game was hurt by his playing ODIs and is completely baseless. For one, Strauss made his debut in the shorter format before the longer format and it had no conceivable effect on his game. Much like Monty, Strauss had serious limitations that had been exposed at the test match level and whether he had played no ODIs or 100 ODIs the fact of the matter is that it would still have resulted in him struggling against the fuller ball and playing with a crooked bat. He has showed some progress to suggest that those flaws have been ironed out, however Im still very much to be convinced as to whether he can score heaps of runs at the top of the order in test match cricket without the bowlers bowling to his strengths as India unquestionably did in the first test at Chennai. I have no doubt that he remains the best option for the test match captaincy and should really have been given the job 2.5 years ago, but I do not by any means want to see him wearing the colored kits again.