I dont think Pietersen can be expected to play the 'grinding' the opposition out game. I dont think you understand the magnitude of his contribution of 94 either, in the context of the match situation. I think KP was instrumental in Collingwood's return to form, imagine coming into the crease being totally out of form and not having to worry about where the runs were going to come from. Imagine what would've happened if Collingwood came into bat with a struggling Vaughan on the other end. Would England then have reached a stage where they even put themselves in contention to win the test match. I dont think so!!! I think Pietersen played a superb knock regardless of whether you feel he played a stupid shot to get out on 94.

Yet it was Smith who sent the ball screaming on the turf to all parts of the park who won them the test match. Where were the like of Prince, McKenzie when the series was on the line?. Go have a look at Smith's strike rate, number of scoring shots and the number of risks he took in his innings. I think your best players perform when you need them the most, nothing should be taken away from the way both KP and Colly played. Would India have come back in the series if not for Sehwag's 201 in trying circumstances? Not a chance!!!

I can understand your frustration as I've seen Sehwag play for India,Gilly and Shahid Afridi play for Deccan Chargers(my home team in IPL). The question you have got to ask yourself is are you better off having these guys or not. I dont even think I want to hear reasons at this point for not having KP in the England team or Sehwag in the Indian team or Gilly in DC, maybe I will entertain doubts of having Afridi in my team.

Boycott called Sehwag 'brainless' when he was in the commentary team for the 1st test India Vs SL. Yet it was the same 'brainless' Sehwag who was instrumental in leading the Indian fightback in the 2nd test. It was the same 'brainless' Sehwag who was picking Mendis beautifully and playing him with utter disdain while the other stalwarts were struggling.

I dont think any captain can be blamed for backing his players. Kumble picked Sehwag who was completely out of form and never in contention for the Australian series and got a rearguard 150 from him in Adelaide when it mattered. I've seen Dhoni say to the selectors that he wanted younger guys like Sharma, Raina, etc instead of Ganguly, Dravid etc and you can see the results. I saw the same Dhoni bringing his players into a huddle after losing the IPL finals, whereas most teams would walk away from the field being distraught.

Vaughan has been a great servant to English cricket (as a batsman and a captain) all these years and I dont think people can complain too much about his captaincy, its sad that his form has taken a major dip which has prompted him to quit. I dont think anyone can and will change Pietersen's mindset, which might even lead to disastrous results. People have tried it with Sehwag for quite a while and thought it was a sheer waste, I think that might be the case with KP as well.

Mark Waugh pretty much said that he was basically an entertainer who loved to bat for the crowd. I always loved watching him bat, and to this day he's still my favourite player of all time, who despite not achieving what he could have, was still a great cricketer. Of course he was capable of boosting his final average of 41.8 by adopting a less cavalier approach, and he could have avoided most of the risky shots and left better, and finished with an average of 50+ (it could probably have been a lot higher) with three or four double centuries. Then what would you have had? Two Steve Waughs, and that would have been twice as boring to watch as one!

My point is that if being aggressive is Pietersen's natural game, then he should roll with it. Of course it means he's going to get out in daft fashions every now and again- that just adds to the unpredictability, and the glorious uncertainty, of the game. I mean, lets face it, only one person in 100 would actually want to watch a top 6 of Atherton, Richardson, Dravid, Kallis, Steve Waugh and Allan Border.

And besides, I think pretty much everyone in the English setup can tolerate Pietersen's lapses if they know that a match-winning performance is around the corner.

I completely agree. My first thought was "so what about the IPL now?" They didn't want to lose him, he's vocal at all times - here is a perfect plan to keep him and zip him up.

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Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn annwyl i mi

What is your opinion on Collingwood's shot in the first innings? Trying to play a ball through mid-wicket when the shot required (were he playing through the usual 'V') was a block/dab towards cover. This was when he was on 4.

I believe you are doing MacKenzie and Prince a real disservice here. Both have played excellently and neither one has turned down giving the treatment to half-volleys. No one is encouraged to block half-volleys!

Hmmm, not sure about that.

Pietersen's shot was stupid and irresponsible, given how he was 'in' and England had reached a more commanding stage. I've commented on Collingwood's first innings dismissal, but there was also Strauss's poor crease position in the first innings and Cook's poor pull at 15/0 and Bell's attempted hook (104/3) in the second innings we're discussing (I believe they have Pietersen and Collingwood to thank), this is before mentioning Vaughan who thought his form was ace after being at the crease for about fifteen minutes.

Bell shouldn't be immune to criticism, he should have taken the the hook shot out of his game three years ago. He was set on 20 with the lead being about 40-50 and then he plays that shot. Should he be dropped too?

No one should encourage a player to attempt to play differently from what they are used to. I would say Pietersen should play positively always, but of course that does not mean he should be trying to hit sixes willy-nilly. Even when on the defensive, one has to search for runs because if you get a good ball that does a bit more than usual you might get out for half the runs you could have got. Boycott often takes this viewpoint for defensive situations, and I think he's right: don't get bogged down, be positive, collect runs and put bad balls away.

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Whatever your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you mine are far greater!
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

Oh come on you have to be smarter than that!!. The ECB zipped up the English players a long time back with the Stanford Match in Antigua.
Who would want to endure 6-weeks of playing in the sveltering heat against the wishes of the ECB when you can get as much money playing one match which the ECB itself organizes?

Maybe they appointed him because they would rather have him pis**** inside the tent rather pis**** from outside the tent. As Rachael says.
I would of thought Pietersen would of shown better judgement than to become capitain. Its not a particular good time.
1. There is a tour to India never an easy tour. Panesar being exposed.
2.Its far from clear the state of Flintoff. He didn't convince me he is back to his best despite the odd flash. Pietersen's taken a risk that Flintoff will be able to get back to his best.
3.They face a tough Ashes next summer. To me the Aussies look favourites for that.
4.The wicketkeeping problems continue.
5.The likes of Bell look inconsistent. 199 against a just arrived SA side on the flat track doesn't say much.

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"Checkout the big brain on Brett" Pulp Fiction

True, Pietersen might well find that his first year has brought very few test wins with it. Of course, he still has to avoid a drubbing at The Oval.

If managed properly by both backroom staff off the field and Pietersen on it, there's no reason why Flintoff can't do some damage regularly.

This really is a major issue. Ambrose hasn't made many glaring errors with the gloves, but his favourite batting shots are all too easily restricted by test calibre bowlers. He's finding it hard to support whichever batsman he joins at the crease. In fact, Broad looks a much better option at number seven and Ambrose at six is laughable I'm afraid.

Bell's innings was quite decent, he was out of form against NZ and that 199 was not at all a gimme. One issue with Bell is that, apparently, he is yet to be the lone century scorer in an innings. Whenever he reach triple figures, someone else in the innings does too. This implies that his ability to stick it out on bad tracks might be in question.

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Whatever your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you mine are far greater!
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

It doesn't imply that at all, what it does imply is that he runs out of partners. At the batting position Bell bats at, usually 5, unless someone else gets a largish score or stays with him, how's he supposed to press on to a century?

There's been plenty of times Bell has been top scorer in an innings when everyone else has failed.

This happened against Pakistan a couple of times when he was batting at six and should really bat with the tail anyway. And a very respectable 54 in 110 against NZ.

He's never got a hundred without someone else getting one - that we've established. Other than that he's been not out inbetween 50 and 100 on two occasions, once was the 54* mentioned above and the other was when England declared against Bangladesh.

There are maybe four occasions when he's got a fifty and no one else has.

I do admit the 54* really does stand out.

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Whatever your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you mine are far greater!
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

It's unreliable to just count the not outs. Many batsmen batting with the tail and running out of partners start to accelerate the scoring rate to try and score as many runs as possible before the end of the innings, this in itself brings increased risks and often the wicket of the batsman.

Exactly the same thing happened to Collingwood in the last test match, he got out trying to up the scoring rate and he bats at 6. Now I'm not trying to suggest that all the 18 scores between 50 and 100 are an example of this, but some of them will be, as it's a direct consequence of batting in the lower middle order.

You would naturally expect No's 1-4 to be converting more centuries than no's 5-7 as they have much more time and opportunity to do so.

To prove my point, look at the following conversion rates of Englands top/middle order, batting position in brackets -

Innings 100's/50's

Strauss (1) 96 12/13
Cook (2) 60 7/13
Vaughan (3) 147 18/18
Pietersen (4) 78 13/11

Bell (5) 75 8/19
Collingwood (6) 70 6/10
Flintoff (6/7) 114 5/24

See how the 50 to 100 conversion rates in the top 4 are much higher than those in the bottom 3? This highlights two things - 1) that Cook's conversion rate is much lower than it should be for his batting position and 2) Both Flintoff and Bell have scored more 50's than anyone else in the side, yet converted much fewer into centuries.

The one player people ought to be criticising is Alastair Cook, yet he's a shoe in and a cert.