"Kevin Pietersen Best Player I Have Played With" : Andrew Strauss

[Sakss]

Former England captain Andrew Strauss has said exiled batsman Kevin Pietersen was the best player he ever played with.

"In terms of being able to do things that other cricketers couldn't, in the England side while I was involved he was the one guy that stood out for me," Strauss was quoted as saying by cricket..com.au on Saturday.

Strauss and Pietersen had a fractured relationship off the field, sullied by a series of scandals.

In 2012, Strauss bowed out of international cricket in a controversial fashion after it was discovered that Pietersen had been sending text messages to certain South African cricketers that denigrated his captain and disclosed information on how to dismiss the left-hander.

Two years later, Strauss was caught calling Pietersen a "c-t" during a commentary stint when he mistakenly thought his live microphone was turned off.

Pietersen was axed following England's 0-5 Ashes whitewash last summer, but a change in leadership at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) has reignited the right-hander's hopes to once again represent the team.

But Strauss says the hype and publicity surrounding Pietersen has distracted the ECB, and the only way to put it behind them is to start winning games of cricket.

"It's very important for English cricket to move on from the Kevin Pietersen situation," said Strauss.
"That threatens to envelop everything at the moment. The story has become more of a distraction than actually him playing or not, it's become that big," he added.

"The ECB and England team's efforts to move on from him haven't worked so far, (but) by winning, that will allow them to move forward."

http://sports.ndtv.com/indian-premi...best-player-i-have-played-with-andrew-strauss

 

[Abdullah]

Building bridges
Wants the job

 

[Scrolln]

The greatest English batsman i've seen. Graham Gooch was great too but not nearly as good to watch, actually was somewhat of an eyesore.

 

[Anchorman]

There wasn't a more destructive Test batsman in the world when Pietersen was on song.

 

[Orbis]

lol which is why he called him the C word accidently on air. And why he said he will never forgive Pietersen after the text scandal.

 

[leatherface58]

lol which is why he called him the C word accidently on air. And why he said he will never forgive Pietersen after the text scandal.

You might hate the guy but admit his effectiveness.

 

[Orbis]

There wasn't a more destructive Test batsman in the world when Pietersen was on song.

Course there is :S

Gilchrist, Hayden, Lara, Sehwag, McCullum, Azhar Ali

 

[Robert]

I'm surprised that Strauss didn't consider Swann the best he played with. He was the lynchpin of England's success in Strauss's reign.

 

[Orbis]

I'm surprised that Strauss didn't consider Swann the best he played with. He was the lynchpin of England's success in Strauss's reign.

Swann was a coward that quit mid-tour. That is just as bad as what Zulqarnain Haider did, betraying the country when people would give their arm to represent it.

 

[Robert]

Swann was a coward that quit mid-tour. That is just as bad as what Zulqarnain Haider did, betraying the country when people would give their arm to represent it.

That doesn't bother me at all. He also won a lot of matches for England with the ball, got them out of lot of holes with the bat and caught everything at slip. That's what I remember him for.

 

[trogger]

lol which is why he called him the C word accidently on air. And why he said he will never forgive Pietersen after the text scandal.

They both seem like pretty unlikeable blokes but that doesn't mean they lack respect for what the other did on the pitch.

Strauss was just a proper test leader which means he managed blokes like kp well even if he hated their guts.

Weak fragile types like cook are going to have to learn that skill soon if they want to survive in a leadership role, you can't just have a team of hive mind types.

 

[Anchorman]

Course there is :S

Gilchrist, Hayden, Lara, Sehwag, McCullum, Azhar Ali

Your opinion. I meant he was the most destructive player at his peak of his era. I rate his peaker higher than anyone you mentioned except Lara but he was before KP's time.

 

[Robert]

They both seem like pretty unlikeable blokes but that doesn't mean they lack respect for what the other did on the pitch.

Strauss was just a proper test leader which means he managed blokes like kp well even if he hated their guts.

They way I read it, Strauss retired due to mental exhaustion brought on in part by having to deal with the bloke. Textgate was the final straw.

 

[ForeverIndian]

KP was one of the few batsman from the World XI who was not an eyesore.

 

[cricketindiafan]

170 (149) albeit against a relatively weaker opposition but what a start to the season for KP.

 

[lameduck]

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/jul/05/andrew-strauss-kevin-pietersen
Andrew struass abused KP live on sky tv when he thought the mic was off. Now this. something doesn't sound right.

 

[TestMatch]

Today: Kevin Pietersen was challenged to rack up runs in domestic cricket to stand any chance of an unlikely return to the England team after a year away from the international game.

He couldn't have started any better.

In his first game for Surrey since re-signing for the county to revive his international prospects, Pietersen struck 170 off 149 balls on the opening day of a three-day friendly match against Oxford MCCU at The Parks.

 

[dildilpak]

They way I read it, Strauss retired due to mental exhaustion brought on in part by having to deal with the bloke. Textgate was the final straw.

You might not like the guy personally, but KP was and is far ahead of his colleagues in terms of sheer talent, skills and mental strength. Takes guts to deal with so much flak as he has and still come out fighting. Unfortunately the whole England team is a bunch of passive-aggressive blokes who collapse mentally at the first sign of trouble, they simply don't have the capacity to deal with somebody like KP. If KP had played under somebody like Nasser Hussain or Stewart, he would not have had half the issues he ended up with.

 

[Gollum]

That's probably very true. Petersen probably the best Test bat for England since Gooch isn't he?

 

[Junaids]

Robert, is this part of a message from Strauss to Colin Graves?

Dear Mr Graves,
I don't think that Pietersen is a c*** after all.

Jolly good player.

Can I be a prefect again now please?

Thanks awfully,

Strauss

 

[Last Monetarist]

https://indianexpress.com/article/sports/cricket/kevin-pietersen-takes-fresh-aim-against-his-old-enemy-andrew-strauss-7700382/

Kevin Pietersen has reignited his old battle with his former captain Andrew Strauss in his support for the current beleaguered captain Joe Root.

“I feel dreadfully sorry for Joe Root. He’s captaining a form of the game that Strauss & co ruined in 2015! Test Cricket should be the pinnacle but Strauss/Morgan are somehow the hero’s..? Like I keep saying, the system is broken & so are the journos who are discrediting Joe!There’s a much bigger picture here too. Joe is captaining players for longer periods of time under the most strictest bubbles. The pressure in Tests mentally is way more,” Pietersen tweeted.

Pietersen vs Strauss saga dates back to 2012 Test series against South Africa, when Pietersen, who had already lost his captaincy after run-ins with England Cricket Board, had sent text messages to South African players that allegedly insulted Strauss. Pietersen was dropped after the “Text-gate’ scandal and though he was later reintegrated into the side, his career slowly grinned to a halt after the 2013-14 Ashes which England lost 0-5 under Alastair Cook.

Last April, in a podcast of Sky Sports, Strauss admitted he had made a “mistake” in handling Pietersen, while also laying his side of the story.

“I probably didn’t do enough work with KP. There came a time when some of the people he was close with in the team retired or got dropped. There was an opportunity there, not necessarily to bring him in, but spend a lot more time with him and make sure his views were valued and considered,” Strauss said. “I think instead I just let KP be KP. In retrospect that was a mistake and might have sowed the seeds for what was to come down the track.”

In his autobiography in 2014, Pietersen had alleged that there was a bullying culture within the team. He had alleged that the wicket-keeper Matt Prior and seniors like James Anderson, Stuart Broad and Graeme Swann would force team-mates to apologise for misfields and dropped catches during matches. His claims were denied by Prior and Swann.

Graeme Smith, former South Africa’s captain, had jumped in defence of Pietersen. “Having played against them we always used to say if we could get a win or get ahead, that they would turn on each other. A lot of the stuff that he’s touched on in his book, the bullying stuff, you certainly did experience some of it when you played against them and you knew you could use it as an asset to get on the other side of them.”

In his version, last year, Strauss talked about how Pietersen had slowly started to drift away from his team-mates. “Often KP wanted to be the guy who was slightly separate from the team. On any given day it didn’t feel like an issue but over time it became an issue.

“Would I do things massively differently if I had my time again? Probably not. The worst thing you can do for players like KP is to straitjacket them and say ‘you have to abide by x, y and z. You can’t go and play in a flamboyant way, you have to grind it out like Jonathan Trott.”

Strauss had felt that Pietersen’s way had undermined the team. “At times, though, what worked for KP almost undermined what the team was trying to do. It felt like there were two completely separate agendas there and that became a problem for me, the rest of the team and [then head coach] Andy Flower.

“We were all tired, emotional and had spent so much time in each other’s pockets. Probably if we had a bit more space to think clearly it might not have got to that stage and we might have managed it better. But I don’t look back and think ‘we were wrong to call KP out over some of the things he did’. I think we had to do that.”

One of the contentious issues was Pietersen’s involvement in the IPL. He wanted to play but Strauss thought it interfered with England’s cricketing schedule.
“But I thought it was incredibly dangerous to allows players to miss Test cricket to play in the IPL. The message you’d be sending and the precedent you’d be setting is that the IPL is more important than Test cricket. I was saying to KP at the time, ‘listen, mate, this is the situation. You can’t opt in or out of international cricket. You’ve got obligations to England and hopefully there are gaps where you can play in the IPL as well’,” Strauss said.

The old wounds hasn’t healed clearly, with Pietersen firing fresh salvos now.