KP

Former England seamer Matthew Hoggard said team-mate Kevin Pietersen's behaviour "grated" on him during the 2006-07 Ashes tour of Australia.

Pietersen, who was dropped by England in February, this week claimed there was a "bullying culture" in the team.

Hoggard, 37, told BBC Radio 5 live: "Some things were annoying me and I wanted to get it out in the open.

"I sat down with him for a beer in a bar in Perth. It was nothing nasty, just a talk between two team-mates."


Hoggard said of the 2006-07 tour, which also ended in a 5-0 defeat: "Pietersen was doing things I did not like.

"He was very professional in the way he trained and got himself ready to play but he could have done more for the team.

"He was doing personal and work stuff in the dressing room which could have been done in private, like how much he was earning. It grated on me.

"But we sat down and he was brilliant. We came away with a better understanding of each other.

"It was very beneficial for me and for him."

Pietersen accused England bowlers Stuart Broad, James Anderson and Graeme Swann of running an "exclusive club" that ran the dressing room, demanding apologies from team-mates who made mistakes in the field.

Pietersen's views on the England set-up:
On former coach Andy Flower: "He built a regime, he didn't build a team. I've told him this before. I told him during his coaching reign."

On wicketkeeper and former vice-captain Matt Prior: "He's back-stabbing, he's horrendous, he's bad for the environment."

On senior players such as James Anderson and Stuart Broad: "The bowlers were given so much power. But these guys ran the dressing room."

On learning of a parody Twitter account of him: "I got told by a senior player that the account was being run from inside our dressing room. I was completely broken, absolutely finished, mentally shot."

I don't think it's exactly controversial to say that Pieterson is clearly something of a knob.  He has never given the impression of having any conception of team ethic.  Right from when he first came into English cricket he has been all about the promotion of Kevin Pieterson - he sees everything through himself and nothing in the context of the team.  Therefore I think he massively overreacts to any perceived slight or any sense that someone is criticising him.  I can only say having been to at least a dozen days of test cricket over the time he's in the team but the guy's body language was always completely distant.  He's warm-up one his own, warn-down on his own, not really ever seem to get involved in team discussions which is odd given he was one of the senior players.  When wickets went down, if he hadn't directly contributed he would be off to one side of the huddle.  I just don't think he had any idea of what a team was other than a vehicle for his own promotion.  This is why English cricket fans never took to him.  There have been plenty of egotistical people in cricket over the years and many were deeply unpleasant.  Don Bradman, despite making huge efforts to protect his image over the years, was quite clearly not a very nice man at all, Ian Botham could be boorish, unpleasant and lacking in personal accountability, Clive Lloyd very chippy, Inzaman Ul Haq was very defensive about everything etc.  But all these people are liked by cricket fans because ultimately they all understood what it was to play for a team.  It doesn't strike me KP has ever done so and that seems to be the consistent criticism that has come out in response to this book.

I never liked him much as a player either - I suppose partly it was reaction to what I thought was hyperbole.  Listening to Mark Nicholas wet his pants every time the bloke walked to the wicket was extremely tedious.  You'd think the guy was English cricket's answer to Viv Richards but he was not as good, not as charismatic, interesting determined a person and he was not in the same league in terms of being good to watch.  In full flow he was exciting, inventive and bullying but I never found him particularly good to watch.  He came at the ball and hammered in a very unique way but give me Gower, Vaughan, Trescothick etc any day over KP's pyrotechnic show though I understand why a lot of people enjoyed watching him; he was like a gladiator and it could be very thrilling.  One thing that's been missed though from all of the discussion about him is that he basically has appeared to be in decline as a player for the last 2 years. It's not like he lit up either of the last 2 Ashes series and his career post-enforced retirement has been underwhelming to say the least.  He's not really performing as he was; that might be typical of a player who relied on instinct rather than technique - you get to an age where the reactions go and he may be there.

Having said all that I think he deserves his moment in the sun here (or at least the ECB deserve the consequences) because the way he was scapegoated was utterly shameful.  There was far more wrong with that England side than Pieterson clearly and the ECB took an easy way out by scapgoating a guy they already knew was pretty unpopular with both teammates and most English cricket fans.  Even people that support KP tend to acknowledge that he's not exactly a nice guy.  I think he's bascially a bit of an idiot who has been badly advised over the years.  But the bitchiness that has been exposed over the last few days kind of vindicated a lot of what I thought about Flower's England team - they didn't look like a side that was having much fun out there.  They were very successful but it was pretty grim stuff a lot of time; I never really warmed to that side very much despite their success.  Perhaps this hints at why.

I'll always think KP will be summed up by a day's play I watched at Edgebaston against SA in 2008.  It was a big series and we were always struggling against SA in that game.  Collingwood was battling for his international career having had a stinking run and he and KP came together in the second innings with England deep in trouble and staring down the barrel of an innings defeat.  Collingwood scratched around terribly, looked like he'd be out at any moment but somehow grafted his way to 50 at which point it looked like it was getting easier for him.  Meanwhile KP was at his imperious best - really taking it to the SA bowling.  Suddenly England nudged past SA's score and started building a lead off the back of this partnership.  Then on 94 KP tried to hit the very average left arm spinner Harris out of Birmingham and was caught at mid-on.  Totally wasteful considering the situation - he was barely clapped off by the England fans who realised what he'd done.  Meanwhile Collingwood continued to graft and bought up his 100 by chipping Harris over Mid-On for 4 to genuine heartfelt roar from the group (I've never been in a better atmosphere at a cricket match than that day).  England went on to set SA a competitive target but were beaten by an inspired Graeme Smith innings.  It was a fantastic match but that summed up both KP and England fans response to him (and possibly why he never felt sufficiently 'loved').  Yes, he played a magnificent innings but he also threw away a chance to really put England in a match winning position and he did it because he wanted to live up to the KP image - swashbuckling, bringing up 100 with a 6 etc.  That doesn't go down well in England - 'that's just the way I play' will never be recognised as an excuse by England fans, we expect players to play for the team.  Collingwood was the definition of that and he was loved by England fans for it, people so desperately wanted Collingwood to do well that day and it was genuine delight when he did - KP despite all his skills and talent never produced that kind of response in people; basically he was never much liked but I can imagine him walking off that day to mild boos having scored 94 'what they hell else do I have to do to get these people to like me?' He just didn't get it.

Nobody's looking great in this tbh - the fact that Chris Tremlett and Steve Harmison to name two have backed up some of his comments tells me that. Having said that, his attitude towards James Taylor and Michael Carberry suggests he doesn't have a leg to stand on when it comes to claims of bullying.

I dislike the dynamics of this team in recent years. We all know Broad likes to have a go at fielders who drop catches and then there's stuff like Nick Compton being dumped despite doing very little wrong and after what seemed to be a whispering campaign in the press from various journalists who are friends of the favoured few. If your face doesn't fit then it doesn't matter how you perform, you'll be dropped.

Team spirit is an illusion glimpsed only in victory. Shame

England bowler Stuart Broad believes it might have been better to drop Kevin Pietersen from the team rather than end the batsman's international career.

Pietersen, 34, was discarded by England in February 2014 after their 5-0 Ashes defeat last winter.

"I just think the sacking became a media uproar," Broad told BBC Radio 5 live's Sportsweek programme.

"It just seemed a bit unnecessary when every other player gets dropped for poor form, don't they?"

Pietersen later went on to release a book in which he said there was 'bullying culture' in the England dressing room.

"It could have been handled very differently by everyone," Broad, 28, added.

"If I'd have been there I might have said: 'Look, that was such a disastrous Australia tour - all the players didn't perform to an international standard. You have to go and perform in county cricket at the start of the year to get back in the England team in May'.

"Then pick the team on players who went and performed and did their duties for their counties."

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/31129033
this will give the egotist a chance to say who is not worthy while "on air" interestingly dangerous appointment could ruffle a few feathers, spec' if England are on the regular hiding schedule

One of Adam Moutfords first decisions when he took over the role of TMS producer from Peter Baxter was to replace Mike Selvey With the likes of Alec Stewart and Michael Vaughan. All of the summarisers he has introduced have been superstars and with the exception of Swann and Tuffnell I find them dull and a bit borish.

I know Things like this are always subjective but I think he's also struggled to replace Blofeld and CMJ. I quite like Ed Smith but the likes of Alison Mitchell, Charles Dagnall, Simon Hughes and before that Arlo White and Mark Pougatch either struggle to describe the game accurately or lack the charisma to fill the void between balls.

I think part of the issue is that newspapers almost exclusively use ex players as writers these days so the likelihood of finding someone like CMJ has decreased unless there are capable broadcasters writing for Cricinfo or a cricket specific magazine. I wonder if someone will eventually find there way to TMS from something like Test Match Sofa?

As I said you are never going to please everyone because broadcasting is subjective but I just think the balance is wrong at the moment. Without CMJ they have no one who really watches any domestic cricket, other then Boycott and his knowledge is limited to Yorkshire and anyone who has done well against Yorkshire.

For all its faults though TMS is infinitely better than Sky whose only good commentator is Mike Atherton. Do they employ anyone who hasn't captained England?

There's truth in that.  Vaughan's attitude to country cricket particularly pisses me off.  With central contracts you have whole generation of England cricketers who see country cricket as nothing more than a stepping stone to England rather than something that has value in itself.  I don't think they realise the depth of passion there is for the county game among hardcore cricket fans who make TMS's audience.  I know really quite a lot of people who don't give a stuff about England as they see it as absurdly overhyped and only go to County games.  To be fair that is one of Swann's few good points; a long career in the county game means he actually gets that.  But no one watches any and Boycott's main job seems to be to act as a cheerleader for which ever promising Yorks player is coming through.  Although to be fair it is hard to argue that he was wrong about Ballance and Root - and in Leaming they probably have Cook's replacement coming through.  Yorkshire does produce an incredible number of quality cricketers; but it is a massive place where a huge amount of cricket is played so it bloody well should do!

Sky's rent a captain approach is just annoying - Strauss literally has nothing to say.  The truth is they only get good when they achieve distance from the team and their mates aren't in it anymore so they can speak their mind a bit.  Also Botham is generally crap - very lazy, plays off his reputation for straight talking which is massively overblown anyway and never seems to know who any of the non-English players are.  Come on, you can do better than that.

The real danger is that they just become vanilla really.  I didn't like CMJ but I had an opinion about him because he had strong views on the game that I found objectionable in the main.  But at least he had them and I could engage with that.  I don't really have any strong opinions about Ed Smith, Charlie Dagnall etc they never say anything interesting.

Yes I read that - very good.  Please save me from the lack of wit and expression passing as 'banter'.