Interesting decision, as long as it doesn't lead to more appearances from Bairstow !

I can't think of another country in the World that would start rebuilding be getting rid of it's best batsman.

He might not be everyone's cup of tea as a bloke but he is only 33, he could easily play for another five years.

England will be a poorer team without him even if the line for his sacking here seems be 'team ethic' For me scoring hundreds and playing match winning innings is good for the team.

At least it's made Piers Morgan cry so some good had came of it.

I just saw Morgan's tweets, what an odious 'lovely lovely person' that man is, and what a shit medium twitter is
How to talk shite and beg for approval in 100 characters or less

Truth of it is who knows how much of a twat pieterson was behind the scenes ? But ability wise it's a strange decision

Ian Botham was involved in drug-taking allegations, sex-scandal alegations and even assault.

KP is a saint in comparison.

Disruptive in the dressing room? Well Botham was a right bully and picked on everyone bar Peter Willey (the only bloke who could deck him).

The always seemed to be an agenda to get rid of KP from the start. Admittedly there were stories in his early days at Notts. Maybe he is disruptive but FFS we can't all be saints. Aren't geniuses supposed to be flawed?

The whole Ashes series was pathetic, but Pietersen was still the only batsman to show any kind of resolve. A lot of the instances where he did get out were as a result of the idiots around him getting out cheaply, meaning he had to go for the big shots.

Surely the new coach should be the one who decided if he wanted KP in his team or not, seen as it's about winning games then I'd imagine he would have.

Or is the future a team of meek mannered yes men?

Unless the coach is Ashley Giles and it that's the case I'm going to start supporting New Zealand.

I'd give the job to Michael Laudrup.

Personally I'd sack the poncey fucking selectors who've made the decision and get some who can recognise talent and the necessity for it in professional sport.

The talentless ball bags posing as selectors seem to dislike proper talent due to being no more than bang average at best in their own careers.

Apparently it was KP who said take Boyd Rankin, Finn and Tremlett to Australia.

He also rates Jade Dernbach.

It's all his fault you see.

They sack KP but keep Jade Dernbach.

It doesn't make sense.

I remember when a young Ricky Ponting got into trouble for chinning someone in a nightclub early in his career. To be fair he was necking on with a 'woman' who revealed *cough* a surprise, the type not uncommon on a night out in Bangkok.

If he was English he probably would never have played a Test.

That story isn't particularly relevant but I thought of it when trying to think of other examples countries sticking by difficult characters.

I can take or leave Pietersen. No man is bigger than the team. It's something he never seems to have understood.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

So what if the 'new coach/director of cricket 'bollox' wants KP for the home tests v Sri Lanka & India.
Like we can afford to 'retire' our best batsman. He has the arrogance of a Premiership footballer...who cares !

Arrogance is frowned upon in English sport in other parts of the World it's called self confidence.

The Germans are arrogant when they are beating us at Football the Aussies are arrogant when they beating us at Cricket.

The ECB and the management committee are a complete and utter laughable stock. They are divisive, not our best player. No other country would do this.

I bet Chris Gayle wouldn't get a game for England because he's laid back and doesn't train hard..... Good luck with selling tickets next summer ECB.....

got it all in a nutshell.

I wouldnt buy a ticket next summer if even if hell had hold of me.

They are stupid beyond belief.

I feel sorry for the fans in the West Indies. They too would love to see the best world players. But England are denying them that.

We will just give them turgid old school cricket played by those that went to public school.

Unfortunately the Pietersen issue is not cut and dried. I for one also think it's a massive shame that he won't appear again for England and have the chance to get to 10,000 Test runs and push his average to 50 or beyond.

However I can't say I blame the ECB for deciding enough is enough. Difficult characters can be accomodated in a team, of course they can and there are numerous examples dotted about throughout the history of English cricket. But with Pietersen there is also an element of betrayal too. He has regularly gone onto public forums to declare which formats of the game he's going to play and has always had an attitude of "I'll pick and choose my own games cheers". You could argue it's not the same with players like Gayle and McCullum because their respective boards (West Indies and New Zealand) can't afford to pay their players as much as what England can so letting them go off for a full IPL season isn't something that causes too much concern. But England can pay their players well and when you sign the contract you make yourself available. It's as simple as that.

Then of course there is the dismal episode involving the texts he sent to South African players, the team England were playing and trying to beat no less, in which he was critical of Strauss and Flower. He is lucky he played again after that and anyone if they're being honest knows that too.

England have just been completely humiliated by Australia. The ECB have clearly said, "do we really want to try and re-build the team from this nadir with someone who has a rich history in pissing the rest of the team off?". They've decided no and whilst it's inevitable that some will disagree I respect their decision.

I have little doubt the bloke is an Arsehole but at the end of the day we've all had to work with arseholes.

I bet they didn't mind him as much when he played match winning innings and in the last couple of years his hundreds in Colombo and Mumbai are regarded by some pretty good judges as the two of the best innings they have ever seen. Are we really jettisoning that ability just because he's a bit of a prick?

Let's pick some team men with a quarter of his ability that will see us back to number one.

Cricket is only a team game to a certain extent.

The bowling and batting, generally, is an individual sport within a team game.

So picking 11 team players in cricket is just stupid.

Who cares if he is an arsehole if I was working with a bloke who was a complete arse but more often than not did better than 95% of the work force would you still keep him, of course you would. Winners are never nice guys and all in it for themselves however this drive is the reason they are so good and sorry but ego comes with this.

Dominic Cork on Talksport the other day summer KP up, he needs to feel important and give a role. When Cork was captain of Hampshire and KP had to come and play in shorter format of game Crok said to him "look Kevin your more experience in this format than me and need your help out there today" even though they hate eachother Cork said he was good as gold that day and was a real asset.

True, Dibble, Christ I'm agreeing with a hysterical Dibble

You've already lost Strauss fairly recently, Trott and Prior potentially, Swann as well and they're choosing to sack our most experienced and arguably best ever batsman. Are they on glue ?

The same Michael Vaughan also said that the texting episode was disgraceful and it would have been very easy to draw a line through his name and move on.

At the end of the day I firmly believe it's a massive shame we won't see him play for England again. All I'm saying is I can understand why the ECB have acted in the way they have. I appreciate such stances are not welcome in today's black and white world. I'll give myself a stern telling off over dinner

south Africans did the same with lance klusener because he was on a similar level of arseholeness to figjam iirc. when hes telling the board he'll spit his dummy out and stamp his feet if certain players are picked for England marking hes his own card really.

It only takes one arsehole to fuck up team spirit, pieterson is a gifted player but has been a 'lovely lovely person' everywhere he has been

One of the worst sporting decisions I can remember. Absolutely fucking stupid stuff.

Alastair Cook should be shot with shit, the fact he has allowed it to get to this position speaks volumes and he should be the one resigning rather than making decisions on who gets axed.

I have lost all faith in the ECB after this, not so long ago I felt they walked on water the way hey we're managing the Test side.

We all seem to be forgetting here the plethora of highly talented young English Cricketers who will replace the Old Guard, revitalise the game over here and take England back to the top of the World rankings in all formats of the game. This will be achieved by August.

I'll start you all off with the first.... er.... Jimmy Anderson?

This would presumably be the same Alistair Cook who played such an influential role (if not the sole role) in bringing Pietersen back into the team after the fiasco in 2012? Something which many people championing Pietersen's cause now feel he should have been ditched for.

Decker, I don't see your problem with Twitter. Most of your little rants on here come well within 140 characters, and talking shite while begging for approval is your stock in trade.

Did he say Moran say to get Decker into such as twist that he loves Bairstow?

I wonder what will happen this summer if Pieterson is leading run scorer in County cricket, and England are playing in front of half empty grounds against Sri Lanka, and India.

On saying that they will get away with it, this summer, BECAUSE of India.

I can't see him playing much County cricket, he'll play the full IPL and earn about $2 million first and that runs into June.

I wouldn't be shocked if he quit first class cricket, he has no reason to play it. and just played T20 and bit of list A to keep his eye in.

Agreed. It would surprise me if he plays for Surrey much this coming season.

I agree with the above posts. IMHO KP will become a T20 mercenary. Play in a few competitions a year earn a lot more than he would playing County Cricket, collect enough air miles for free flights for his holidays away from Cricket.

Thinking about it just doing this, all being well injury wise he could easily earn big bucks for another 5-7 years.

And who could blame him?

Who would want to play for the stuck up suits running Cricket, if you had better and more fun options?

I would sack him based on his obvious inability to man-manage. Cook was going into his first stint as captaincy after text gate. was he loyal to KP or just wanting a world class player (this all kicked off just after his 149 against South Africa and his innings in Colombo I think) in his team?

Piers Morgan is acting like an über 'lovely lovely person' on twitter, stirring it up between Prior and KP. What he is trying to achieve is anyone's guess.

The Aussies will be buzzing at this, how have we allowed it to happen?

It started last summer.

As soon as the aussies brought in Lehmann.

He made them tougher, and to act tougher.

Bu the time we got out there we were a bunch of pussies, and the thought of batting against Johnson terrified the faggots.

Again, given it was Cook who negotiated his return to the England team I think having a pop at his man-management skills is stange.

Moreover he is not the only person to have failed to "manage" Pietersen's character. The South African board, Natal (so it's clearly not just an English problem), Nottinghamshire, Hampshire and numerous other England coaches/personnel have also failed.

I will state again it's a massive shame its ended like this and we eventually deserve a full explanation from the ECB. But fact that it has ultimately ended like this is not a surprise to me.

I think KP has earned the right to be arrogant. Like him or not he's a player that people pay good money to watch. KP still has years of test cricket in him and to exclude him is embarrassing. Although he came into an improving England team I don't think we would have ever won the ashes without - England have never had the mentality he has.

In 2005 in the first test he showed that the Aussies with big reputations that he wasn't afraid to take them in and that mentality spread throughout the team. Now England will no doubt be back to scoring 2.5 runs an over and struggle after struggle. How may players would have the balls to do this in their first test and carry it off?

The more you read in the press the absurd this decision actually gets.

Apparently he criticised some of Flowers methods in a team meeting after the Melbourne Test then he had a disagreement with Cook two days before the Sydney test about a training session. Nothing major, an argument which has been blown and of proportion.

That is all, apparently throughout the tour his attitude was excellent. He even doing extra sessions with Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson in the nets working on improving them against fast bowling. They both changed stance on his advice.

He also tried to help Joe Root as well, who approached KP due to his struggles.

Its utterly mental.

And all this talk of KP not being a team player!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its cricket for fucks sake.

If a batter is playing shite, but the team keeps winning well, that batter will be dropped. Dropped because his INDIVIDUAL performance is not up to scratch, regardless of whether he is a good team member.

Cricket is only a team game, when it suits.

I might go and put some money on him for highest runs in IPL granted Gayle will be favourite but I can see KP being pissed off and launching himself into the IPL. Wasnt he the leading run maker in the last IPL he played in before he had to leave for England duty?

The truth is that we still don't know what has fully gone on. Once the legal people have finished with this matter, and that could take some time, hopefully we'll have a clearer picture.

It's making me howl the way Graeme Swann is coming out to Pietersen's defence. The man who quit cricket mid tour and said, "you wouldn't believe how many people in international cricket are up their own arses" or words to that effect.

Can't possibly begin to imagine who he might have meant there.

David Warner.

Yeah I bet he meant only him

He clearly did.

It was a reference to that awful press conference were he called Trott 'weak' and the fact all cricketers go through tough patches. Nothing to do with Pietersen that was an incorrect presumption for a lot of people.

At first glance I thought the title of this thread was about KP being sucked off. Anyone else?

I think football should take that line; the premiershit would be dead tomorrow.

Amazingly at cricket nets last night a lad who plays for us and is also on the books of a Premiership Club said the very same thing. He had his club would struggle to turn out eleven

I don't think that's happening until he appears on Piers Morgans Life Stories.

Christ a couple of minutes in KP's face will look like a painter and decorators radio.

Who do you play for?

Hartlepool.

I used to play there until I was 18 when I left town for uni.

I don't like that you can play for draws in the NYSD or that bowlers aren't restricted in terms of overs.