It all began with a denial. Andrew Flower denied the suggestion that he had threatened to resign unless Kevin Pietersen was thrown out of the England squad. This week, Paul Downton said in a BBC interview (download interview) that there was a unanimous feeling in the England camp that the time had come to move on from Pietersen. Downton insisted that there was "no smoking gun" in KP's case, echoing a sentiment expressed by Andrew Strauss in a column in the Sunday Times earlier this year. Everything that happened in between has been a concerted demonstration of contempt towards Pietersen.
The point about the smoking gun is worth reflecting on. Strauss's line was that "[t]he media have been searching for a 'smoking gun'. Everyone is looking for disciplinary problems, bust-ups and character clashes, but they are looking for the wrong thing. The smoking gun is the total absence of trust." Michael Vaughan, on the other hand, wanted Pietersen to be appointed vice-captain because "the management group needs fewer ‘yes’ men telling them what they want to hear. It starts with the vice-captaincy. It did not work having Matt Prior do the job. Ian Bell is never a vice-captain and the fact they have not made Stuart Broad Cook’s deputy shows they do not believe he has any kind of leadership role in Test cricket."
Downton's claim about unanimous feeling fails the smell test. At least three players have publicly said that they didn't think Pietersen was particularly a problem. To make matters worse, Paul Collingwood and Ashley Giles, two former England cricketers who have now assumed coaching roles for England seemed to suggest that KP was an exceptionally valuable cricketer. Graeme Swann wrote that he was baffled by England's decision to sack Kevin Pietersen. This, even though in Swann's view, Pietersen could be "childish", and that "he does upset people wherever he goes". Australian fast bowler Peter Siddle said he was glad England had decided not to pick Pietersen. He went on to describe his approach against Pietersen, which was to try and bore the England batsman. It is the highest compliment that can be paid to a Test batsman. Another England bowler who Australia were always worried about (Steve Waugh has said that Australia preferred to face seam bowlers rather than out and out fast bowlers who could get steep bounce, and gave the specific example of Harmison while doing so), gave an example of the ECB's impersonal corporate methods and expressed his support for Pietersen.
In what is perhaps the most substantive reported account of the proximal cause of the Pietersen Affair, David Hopps describes a "clear-the-air" team meeting called by the England players with the knowledge of the team management (Andrew McGlashan reports that Flower did not know about this meeting beforehand) on the final day of the Melbourne Test. Only the players were present. This was meant to allow the players to speak freely. Pietersen did. What he said amounted to "an anti-Flower rant".
The contents of this team meeting were reported back the team management, not in the form of a well-organized set of ideas which the players collectively offered as their input from the meeting, but most probably in the form of what the individual opinions were. What is also clear is that while the management agreed to a "clear-the-air" meeting of just the players, the view that some members of the management (Flower) were doing a poor job, was not an acceptable finding.
That the outcome of the team meeting appears to have found its way back to Flower and his assistants piecemeal, is a failure on the part of the organizers of the meeting. Of all the things Cook should have expected at the meeting, disagreement among members of the team should have been the most obvious. That Pietersen, who was reportedly a known critic of Flower's methods would bring such a thing up, should also have been obvious.
If it is in fact true that (1) the meeting was supposed to be for players only so that the players could speak their mind, and (2) what individual players said at the meeting was reported back to the team management including Flower; them it is difficult to see how the organizers of the meeting (Cook and Prior according to David Hopps) had not betrayed their teammates.
Rhetorical rudeness is always penalized more strongly than substantive disrespect (which Cook and Prior demonstrated towards their teammates, if Hopps' account is accurate) and betrayal, provided the latter is carried out with rhetorical politeness. It is one of the more disgusting aspects of the white collar corporate world. But such it is. On the basis of Hopps' account, it is hard to escape the conclusion that Pietersen was betrayed by his captain.
Hopps' account of Pietersen's behavior flies in the face of Downton's understanding of Pietersen's behavior in the Sydney Test. Does a passionate tirade against a coach's methods sound like disengagement? Does the disengagement (which Downton apparently saw on the field) at Sydney surprise you given the fact and consequences of the meeting described above?
It has also been interesting to see how Pietersen's tenure as an England player has been described. Andrew Strauss, Pietersen's former captain, wrote that "[h]is relationship with English cricket has been like an illicit affair. Full of thrills and excitement but destined to end in tears." Mark Nicholas called it "the Pietersen Project" in an essay in which he places Robin Smith's failings against slow bowling, Allan Lamb's love of partying and Tony Greig's decision to play for Kerry Packer as comparable peculiarities about these "men from Southern Africa". The fact of playing for England without being "English", as Nicholas puts it, is not irrelevant to Pietersen Affair.
All this leaves one with the impression that England have thrown away their finest batsman in the last 40 years because other, lesser players, and his team management were not mature enough to put up with his idiosyncracies. Had there been genuine examples of egregious conduct (beyond being rhetorically rude - things like lying, backstabbing, being difficult with a younger player, not following team orders on tactics etc.), its inconceivable that the ECB would have held back about it. More importantly, England's massive support staff and corporate leadership are behaving like corporate bosses managing a sport. They are responding to a loss in a sporting contest in the way corporate management might react to an accident in a soap factory. It doesn't help, in this outsider's eyes, that there are journeymen-turned-investment-bankers making these decisions in the very first days of their job, and justifying them with hearsay.
Mark Nicholas concludes his essay with the prediction that one day Pietersen "will wonder why on earth he was so contrary". Perhaps he will. But this is a relatively minor aspect in the matter. What is substantially more significant is the question of the ambitions which drive a sporting organization like the ECB to fire a player for the reasons that Pietersen was fired. Not a single fan who pays the cable or internet subscription to watch cricket, or buys a ticket at the cricket ground, does so to watch Paul Downton or Andrew Flower or any of their 100 or so non-playing subordinates. Neither do fans do it to follow rhetorically polite private team meetings. The fans watch because players like Pietersen play. The ECB and the ICC arguably exist because human beings can play cricket like Kevin Pietersen.
It has been widely reported that a confidentiality agreement exists until October between the ECB and Pietersen, and that this applies to both parties. Downton appears to have violated this agreement at least twice. He commented on the Pietersen situation when Peter Moores was announced as England's new coach, and now he has done so again in a lengthy interview to the BBC. Pietersen has said little so far. His statement in response to Downton's BBC interview is measured and factual.
Keeping these facts and events in mind, it is hard to avoid the impression that the ECB has been systematically disrespectful and contemptuous of Pietersen. This could be because this is how they genuinely feel about him, or it could be how their behavior, which is motivated by the bad publicity that has come their way as a result of their decision about Pietersen, comes across publicly. Former England captains, current England players and the current ECB chief have all not been shy of commenting about various aspects of Pietersen's conduct, secure in the knowledge that Pietersen would not risk breaking the confidentiality agreement.
This is not surprising given the basic asymmetry in the relationship between employer and employee. The surprising thing in the Pietersen Affair is that there was no disciplinary action against Pietersen during the 5 Test series in Australia. It is not uncommon for teams to discipline errant players. There are well established procedures for doing so. That this was not done in Pietersen's case reflects poorly on the management.
The Pietersen Affair shows up Andy Flower and Alastair Cook in a poor light. They failed to manage their best batsman. This is what they have to answer for. And this is what Paul Downton has to answer for. His decision to fire Pietersen in his first days in the job has been described by David Hopps as bold and controversial. The last four months have shown that it was a bungled decision. What did Downton think was likely to happen if he fired a top player without giving a single reason? Why did he agree to this confidentiality agreement? And why does he systematically disregard it and offer amateurish analyses of Pietersen's batting in the process? On a different substantive note, if Andrew Flower was about to leave, why were his views about Pietersen taken so seriously?
We have heard, and will continue to hear plenty about the standards of conduct that Pietersen fell short of. But what about the standards of conduct that the ECB fell short of? And continues to fall short of? Will there be an accounting of those? Who will provide it? We have heard plenty about Pietersen's allegedly massive ego. What of the ECB's utterly fragile ego, that it has effectively hidden behind Pietersen's teammates to justify its decision to fire Pietersen.
The ECB, in its corporate myopia, has hurt cricket by discarding one of the most accomplished talents of the age in his prime. They have done so by using the sly, underhanded method of using a confidentiality agreement to avoid having to explain anything, and then ignoring this agreement in order to systematically discuss Pietersen's conduct and character without having to account for their own. For this, they ought not to be forgiven. In fact, the Pietersen Affair ought to be about them, and not about Kevin Pietersen.