Kevin Pietersen remains an issue the muddled ECB just cannot get right

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/12/kevin-pietersen-ecb-andrew-strauss-england-cricket

Version 0 of 1.

“Easy, easy, easy” chant the Barmy Army, roaring their approval at the MCG as England’s cavorting players perform Graeme Swann’s initially endearing, eventually irritating, “sprinkler dance”.

A man in a St George’s Cross bikini goons around in the stands as Andrew Strauss and Kevin Pietersen grin from ear to ear after England seal victory to retain the urn before going on to record their first overseas Ashes series win in 24 years.

A few months later, the victorious scenes are replicated at Edgbaston as England defeat India to become the No1 Test side in the world. Hunt them down on YouTube now and they look like images beamed in from another era. Why is everyone smiling? Where’s the rancour, the plots, the Byzantine swirl of rumour and leaden-footed positioning?

Michael Vaughan, who appears to have dodged a bullet in leaving the field clear for his successor as captain Strauss to become England cricket director, said then that the side could go on to dominate like West Indies in the 1970s and 80s or Australia in the 90s.

So where did it all go wrong? As ever, the clues were there even in the moment of triumph. Dig out the ECB’s glossy 2011 annual report and you will find a portrait of an organisation that is already making the transition from self-confidence to hubris.

The Allen Stanford debacle – helicopter, perspex box full of notes and all – had been airbrushed from history. In its place, an organisation ready to rule the world: “Giles Clarke reflects on a momentous 12 months which saw England crowned as the world’s number one Test side, continued growth in participation at grassroots level and the signing of major new broadcasting and sponsorship deals,” it begins.

As the England side ossified in the way that all great teams do unless they pull off the rare trick of renewal from within – see the All Blacks or Sir Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United sides for rare examples – so the ECB seemed to become warped out of shape.

Clarke, never a man given to self doubt, divides opinion (not unlike Pietersen). But in recent months he has most resembled Ukip’s Nigel Farage in engineering a means to stay on as the ECB’s first president even as his successor as chairman, Colin Graves, prepares to take office.

A strong – for a long time successful but ultimately corrosive – cabal held sway in the England dressing room while Clarke remained the dominant force in the boardroom. The money kept rolling in, courtesy of the still unproven gamble on throwing all of its eggs into Sky’s basket, and with it the ability for Clarke to use that cash to keep the counties onside. The model, on a minor scale, is not unlike that used by Sepp Blatter to stay endlessly in power at Fifa. Another similarity between the pair is Clarke’s ability to endlessly survive periodic crises while subtly edging his deputies towards the exit door. So while first David Collier and Hugh Morris eventually left, swiftly followed by the short-lived tenure of Paul Downton, Clarke has remained.

Meanwhile, there were strategic mis-steps such as the failure to come up with a meaningful answer to the Twenty20 question and the maintenance for commercial and structural reasons of the endless grind of the year-round cricket calendar that inevitably contributed to the hothouse atmosphere and personality clashes from which you can draw a dotted line to farce.

It is impossible to separate the personalities from the politics. It was Strauss who was the subject of those text messages from Pietersen to the South Africa tourists that in turn nurtured a strange sense of burning injustice over the way he was subsequently disciplined.

It was Strauss who was caught on microphone calling Pietersen a “cunt” less than a year ago. And it is unlikely that the former captain has forgotten Pietersen’s memorable put-down in which he wrote that explaining the IPL to Strauss was like describing “gangsta rap to a vicar”.

Tom Harrison may be widely respected as a sports executive but is now being forensically tested in public by a combination of the 24-hour media cycle, a rambunctious and spirited PR campaign by Pietersen and his outriders and the mistakes of his predecessors (not least the decision to “sack” Pietersen in the first place).

Graves, who initially set the hares running on Pietersen’s return by suggesting that if he was regularly scoring runs in county cricket he would be considered for selection, has not even officially begun in his new role and yet finds himself in the eye of the storm.

After the delay in announcing Strauss’s appointment left Peter Moores hung out to dry, the new England director of cricket got off on the worst possible foot by repeating the error of attempting to “draw a line” under Pietersen but instead placing him firmly back at the heart of the matter. Then compounding it with his bizarre offer of an “ad hoc consultancy” role straight out of the Wernham Hogg playbook.

Former England captains in other sports were pretty sure where to place their allegiances. “Saddest part today is that Strauss, in his new role, is not a big enough man to put English cricket’s interests ahead of his own,” said Will Carling. Gary Lineker added: “I see Mr Strauss has allowed personal grievance to influence his decisions. Seems extraordinarily petty and immature. Doesn’t bode well.” Ouch.

With a new chairman, a new chief executive, a new director of cricket and a vacancy for head coach the hope must have been that round of press would herald a new beginning. That the media and the public could move on from endlessly debating Pietersen and focus instead on building a side that could win the World Cup in 2019. After all, there are plenty of questions – both cricketing and strategic – that need urgent attention. Some hope.

As ever, it is events on the pitch that will ultimately decide whether the new broom can sweep away the detritus of the previous regime. Lose a home Ashes series this summer, a decade on from that glorious summer when millions watched on free-to-air television as Vaughan led Strauss and Pietersen to a sporting triumph for the ages, and the questions will return one hundred fold.

The cricketing public may be split over KP – although the broader sporting public who are slowly becoming disconnected from the game appear to be largely with him – but the events of the past week will not endear those grumbling over the amount they are being asked to pay for Test tickets and TV subscriptions.

On the other hand, if the core of a youthful, swashbuckling new side emerge over the course of the summer and the new management team set a course for a more enlightened era in which the ECB is able to look over the next hill rather than down at its feet as it stumbles from crisis to crisis, then they might yet be able to arrest the malaise.

Either way Pietersen – who noted in that damned book that by 2013 the home Ashes series was “low-key” compared to 2005 – will now be watching from the sidelines. And, you suspect, won’t be slow to pass comment.