Can’t help thinking the BBC sides with Pietersen in relation to his claims about the England team.
Adrian Chiles said he loved Pietersen’s book and then gave him an easy interview…later admitting he probably was too much influenced by his excitement for the book.
George Riley told us he didn’t care about the facts just the effect the revelations had on England’s reputation…but surely that would rest upon whether Pietersen’s facts were facts…and not I’m really interested in Riley’s opinion..surely he’s there to give us those facts rather than his own personal concerns about events.
Then we had another BBC sports reporter whose name I missed, saying he backed Pietersen and it was all the ECB’s fault.
Not sure on what basis he came to that conclusion.
If you’d listened to 5Live’s coverage of this story you’d be fairly badly informed about events….which as 5Live is the ‘sports’ channel for the BBC you might think that wasn’t a gold medal performance.
For instance the BBC on 5Live kept highlighting certain claims by Pietersen but didn’t reveal any contrasting information that might paint Pieteersen as a hypocrite or plain wrong….even though the ECB’s leaked document was mentioned 5Live didn’t quote anything of relevance from it and it wasn’t until I read it in the newspaper that I got a fuller picture and a different perspective on Pietersen’s claims.
Pietersen criticised Swann and Trott for going home early but he himself was reported to be looking to duck out of a match…
“Prior to the Perth Test, an England team physiotherapist approached AF to inform AF that KP had told him that KP was looking to do anything to go home after the Perth Test if England lost the match to go 3‐0 down. KP allegedly told the physio that if England lost the match, his knee was “going to be really playing up”.
Pietersen claims senior players bullied junior ones by shouting at them if they dropped a catch and yet he himself did something similar….
After playing a terrible shot to get out in one of his innings in the Fourth Test, KP returned to the England dressing room and in front of the younger England players, shouted “you lot are useless”.
Pietersen claims Andy Flower had it in for him…perhaps because Pietersen had it in for Flower…trying to get him sacked….
AF told KP at the end of the meeting that he was amazed that after 7 years of working together and AF bending over backwards for KP, that KP would talk to AF like that and be so incredibly disloyal as to try to get rid of AF like that behind AF’s back. KP then left AF’s hotel room.”
Pietersen said that one England player, Matt Prior, wasn’t good enough…the fact that England hadn’t taken up his contract proved it….
“I don’t think I could have been that wrong because he doesn’t have a central contract any more. England are finished with him.”
Well England haven’t taken up Pietersen’s contract…so that must prove he wasn’t good enough in many respects…scoring runs is not the sole criteria to be judged in a team game…England are finished with Pietersen.
When Piers Morgan (Clarkson punched him…hurray) slagged off England Pietersen laughed and told them to get a thicker skin….which perhaps is an irony considering Pietersen’s own diaphanously thin skin….
“It riled the team and management that KP allowed Piers Morgan to belittle AC [Alastair Cook] and the team on social media. When asked by some of his team mates to get Piers Morgan to stop tweeting about the team, KP laughed at the players and told them to get a thicker skin.”
Pietersen’s book is a hatchet job designed to attack the England team, put Pietersen back in the limelight where he ‘belongs’, to paint himself as a victim and make him lots of money….no coincidence that another player said Pietersen would play for any country that offered enough money, so expecting any loyalty from him might be somewhat foolish. Pietersen said of Matt Prior….“He’s back-stabbing, he’s horrendous, he’s bad for the environment.” That surely is more descriptive of Pietersen himself than anyone else…which is why he was given the boot….regardless of his batting prowess.
You might be expected to be able to rely on the BBC to report in a more even fashion and to point out the hypocrisy and fallacies in Pietersen’s claims rather than seemingly to side with him and support his view of events which the facts don’t seem to fully back up.
However the BBC’s Jonathan Agnew does give us a far more nuanced look than I have heard from the rest of the 5Live team saying Pietersen’s book was ‘a stream of unhappiness, suspicion and accusations. ‘
Just a shame the rest of 5Live seem to be in awe of Pietersen.
I haven’t ready the book, but have been following the reporting with interest. For quite some time, years in fact, I have been of the view that Pietersen is a thoroughly divisive individual, consumed by his own importance and a great believer in his own press. Nothing I have read recently has changed my view.
A naturally very gifted cricketer, he seems to be more popular with the opposition than he is with his own side, and it is a shame that his career has ended in this way but at the end of the day he is either misguided or poorly advised and only has himself to blame.
Being Scots and uninterested in cricket, is this guy not South African? This is what you get when you involve non-nationals in a national side. They have no loyalty or pride to a nation they weren’t born in.
Absolutely. I’m English and love cricket, and I’d rather have a weaker team of English (and Welsh) players than one stuffed with Sarf Efricans, however talented they might be.
agreed 100%
Has the BBC finally found a white South African they like?
We`re in the domain of the BBCs love-in with the “Good Rebellion”.
Whatever they decide is the underdog, the Good Victim, the Righteous Cause…well, they`ll be given the conch shell and free pass.
That the same “victims” happen to blow up others, rant for the cameras and provide good pictures and a new layer of poverty pimps to?…only adds to the Good.
And like Clinton/Lewinsky…Al Gores air miles and electricity bills…Toynbees Tuscan villas and Baroness Scotlands illegal nannies etc?…it`s the RIGHT Cause…which wipes out all charges of hypocrisy.
As opposed to an Andrew Mitchell or Lord MacAlpine/Thatcher…for who no vileness is too low to bring out.
are you like me getting a bit sick of these so called ex sportsmen and the likes of stephen fry appearing non stop on the bbc plugging there books just to make a few bucks of the dumbos who are stupid enough to buy them,every day somebody is plugging a book on radio 5 live and radio 4.now ex sex pistols john lydon was plugging his book to day on radio 5 live,his book might be worth a read because at least the guy is a bit interesting and is not overdosing us plugging the damm thing like mr pietersen and stephen fry 24/7.