Pietersen and South Africa

[John]

Pietersen confirms in his new book cites the quota policy as why he left South Africa to play for England. Just one problem that I can't solve how come there are so many sub standard white players have played for SA in recent years if they are being discriminated against ie. Hall, Boje, Dippenaer.
Pietersen has always overplayed the victim card on this one. There are probably a number of reasons why he left SA cricket it just sounds to principled to leave on grounds of discrimination.
Someone said a while ago Pietersen was the first truly free market crickter.

[Seamer]

Originally Posted by John

Pietersen has always overplayed the victim card on this one. There are probably a number of reasons why he left SA cricket it just sounds to principled to leave on grounds of discrimination.
Someone said a while ago Pietersen was the first truly free market crickter.

Mercenary is what i would call him. Still, i can understand him not liking the quota system - it is discrimatory and not much fun if you are the one that is being discriminated against.
He is a remarkable cricketer - huge loss for S.A.

[John]

Yes he is a loss. But it has been a difficult period in transition and things like that were bound to happen. The point is the game has to be spread far and wide in SA and losing Pietersen might be a price worth paying.

[butchering lee]

like john i have wondered too about the many players who are not of such high quality getting through as well as his over-egging the victimisation.

Originally Posted by Seamer

Still, i can understand him not liking the quota system - it is discrimatory and not much fun if you are the one that is being discriminated against.

"not much fun" is about as bad as it gets. it is set up to attempt to right the imbalance created by real discrimination - i don't know how long they should keep quotas but i am glad they were introduced (despite obvious complications - like below).

pieterson said when Bodi was given a chance ahead of him, he [KP] got furious, threw a bottle and shouted he was leaving - that could reveal a lot about the necessity of the system and mindsets involved as Bodi is not a bad cricketer and could very well, at the time, have deserved the place ahead of pieterson. in any case, the flaw in the system is evident when you can be sure that guys like ntini, amla, prince, adams, gibbs, tshabalala, clearly Bodi...all had someone, somewhere saying they were the undeserved result of this discrimination while they (the speaker) was the victim of the discrimintion.

[butchering lee]

he is a good player - tho' i'm still not completely convinced about his "greatness".

[John]

I tell what there was all that debate around him or Thorpe.Well he is a much better ODI batsmen than Thorpe and his Test career may prove him to be as good at Test level if not better than Thorpe we shall wait and see.

[butchering lee]

Originally Posted by John

I tell what there was all that debate around him or Thorpe.Well he is a much better ODI batsmen than Thorpe and his Test career may prove him to be as good at Test level if not better than Thorpe we shall wait and see.

i will be surprised (not unpleasantly) if he has as good a test career as thorpe. he has many lives and although he really does seem to play spin well, when going after the top-class spinners he doessn't last long.

any predictions on KP's ashes ave. - i'll go out on a limb and say - below 30.

[butchering lee]

i had a kneejerk answer above regarding quotas. i think john's answers were more than sufficient. i hadn't even read his response to seamer when i replied.

[John]

Personally I am for some sort of quota as I have argued elsewhere. But the fact is SA haven't really implemented a strict quota system. And times there was talk of six black players in the side. It never happened there were a couple times where black were elevated above their position in the pecking order but hardly strict discrimination.
Dippenar and Hall who are rubbish managed to get in the side regularly. Hardly a sign of big discrimination.
You seem to forget Thorpe had a number of barren in his Test career. Pietersen has not had a bad start to his Test career. It will be interesting to see but I hope you right and he doesn't do well.

[butchering lee]

if the quotas are not controlled then they're open to abuse and i can't see enough good coming out of them - but like you i think they are a need.


pieterson has had a good start but i think about some of his most known performances ie the 150 that won the ashes - he was dropped like 5 times. there was also the recent good score v SL where he was labelled a genius and showed to score 58 off 62 (thereabouts) murali balls - but when you did a closer inspection he had played him well to begin with then went after him (scoring 3x4 and 1x6 in about 7 balls) but lost his wkt after the 6. the aussies have labelled him a "notoriously bad starter" and tho' it's the usual pre-series crap i think they know we know they have a point.

i'm not a Saffer (nor english) so i don't care too much wether or not he succeeds - except when they play zim again and i certainly find him entertaining but i'm yet to be won over to the "genius" tag