Kevin Pietersen dropped from England test team

Kevin Pietersen's mother is English. Jonathan Trott's parents are of English decent.  Matt Prior moved to England with is parents at the age of 11. His father is English. Craig Kiewetter's mother is Scottish. He started playing for Somerset in 2007 and qualified to play for England in 2010. The previous rules of the ECB was that in those circumstances you can play for England after 3 years of county cricket. They have now changed the rules. If you came to England after the age of 18, you have to be in England for at least 7 years. In other words, not even perminent residence is enough to qualify anymore.

The fact is that none of those players were recruted by the ECB. I doubt if Pietersen would have represented South Africa. Ali Bacher has told him as much when he (Bacher) tried to persuade him to stay. That was Bacher's own admission in an interview that was shown over here during the lunch break today. Bacher has told him (at the time) that the quota system is in place and will go at some stage, but that he could not say when. KP made the decission to leave because he believed that he was good enough to play international cricket and he proved it.

I do not understand what you mean by:

"If the same lax eligability process was followed by South Africa- Pieterson would have probably played in the 3rd test against England and not just providing tactics."

 @Ceradyne. Your Knowledge of cricket is much more than mine. I do not follow cricket very often, but have been following this controversy as it is a South African. Nothing worse than turning on the TV to see cricket. 

From what you have said re-"If you came to England after the age of 18, you have to be in England for at least 7 years. In other words, not even perminent residence is enough to qualify anymore."

Even Lauren Dallagio- the former English Rugby captain is very critcal about the very lax process for foreigners playing for the English Rugby team.

I think this brings some sanity. This is what I meant about the past "lax eligability process"- just turning up at the local job center and getting try outs for the English cricket team. I was joking about Kevin Pietersen playing for South Africa in the 3rd test. 

As for Ali Bacher- not much of an attempt to convince him to stay by telling Pietersen he would not play for South Africa. 

On the last point about English and British Heritage, I am from Durban where many people have parents and grandfathers that are English etc. This is also true of many countries that were formerly colonies of Britain. I do not think it should be a factor at all. More importantly though is that I am surpised their is not a global cricketing body that decides global rules of eligibilty that can be enforced for consistency for the World game- seeing as it is an international competition. 

There is a global cricketting body, the ICC, and there are rules, but they cannot dictate to there members what the minimum requirements for inclusion is. The rule is, as far as I know,  that you swap national teams, just like in rugby. In other words, those who are waiting for KP to return and represent SA.............. it is not going to happen.

In addition, as long as we have players like Beast, we cannot say a single word about any other national side that has "foreigners" in their team. No matter if it is one, two or five players. Almost all the national sides have "foreigners" in their teams. Go check.

Fact is also that the world has changed. People are moving all over the world and you have lots of different nationalities all over the show. If youngest son decides to move back to SA and my grandson (3), who was born over here, decides to play rugby and gets good enough to make the Bok Team, should he be disallowed? Let's say for instance my son decides to return to SA in five years time. By the time my grandson is 18, he could have an SA passport.

It's difficult and I don't think the 7 year ruling is a solution. You do have to wonder how many young stars will waste oppertunities trying to make that 7 years, even at 18 they would only be able to play by 25...

We see player leaving all the time in rugby, for example, but we often loose player who would not actually make a springbok squad let alone become a "world's best". I think that is problem with cricket, we actually loose viable talent to England rather than the "lesser" players.

I think the 3 year rule is perfect, regardless of residency.

I personally don't like the way KP left, even watching those interviews over again really got me pissed off. Ali offered KP a spot in any SA national team, he said he could make "arrangements". KP just needed to leave Natal and wait out for SA selection. Which lets face it, he would have made because the quota was met by Ntini, Abrahams, Ontong and Gibbs at that time. But he decided to ran over here, for money, not the quota system. 

Don't get me wrong he is a fantastic player, but that doesn't mean I need to like him personally or judge him unfairly.

We are always on about the talent that we loose with players leaving SA. Sure we can say that KP would have been in the SA side, but in place of who? Kallis? AB? Amla? It is no use refering to Prior. He came over as a kid. Would Van Wyk (NZ) have played for SA? Would Kieswetter have played for SA? Ruan Pienaar pissed off because he was stuffed around. Schalk Britz the same. Jake White offered to buy him a plane ticket. Would Mouritz Botha have played for SA, or Bradley Barritt? What would have happened to Rathbone? He would have ended up on the bench behind Jaques Fourie. I don't think that he would have ended on the wing, like he did for Aus.

Mouritz Botha doesn't really work with your arguement, he is on record as saying "I was told I would never make the Springboks, so I decided to leave for England"

Pienaar, Butch and Frans all left and came back to play for Boks they had no intentions of signing for Japan, England or France.

Britz is the exact same, unless you know something I don't? He is playing for "SA" team here and would still play for the Boks.

We can go on all day, about young SA sportsman you have left but still want to play for SA or those who don't. That is not the point I was making.

The problem I have with KP is him claiming that the quota system as his reason he left and then him joining England team out of what I see as spite.

Many players are open about their intentions, Botha, KanKan, Pienaar or Money Bill for example, to play for money or that they don't see themselves making the team.

We really can't break down the individuals in the Proteas now and try find a place for KP, that is pointless. He has left, he is no longer South African, he belongs to the ECB.

If he had remained here, he would be in the squad, there is no doubt about that.

EDIT:

Here is the article in case anyone is wondering:

http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/rugby/mouritz-botha-theres-no-stopping-me-now-7310889.html

He says: "I was told that I'd never make it as a rugby player in South Africa. At 105kg (16st 7lb) I was too light to succeed in the second row at the Stormers [the Cape Town club]."

Wise Warnie advises punch up! Ex  Telegraph

"The problem I have with KP is him claiming that the quota system as his reason he left and then him joining England team out of what I see as spite."

Their is no doubt about that. That was always his reason for leaving, right from the start. Even before he left. I wish that I could get the link again where he was asked exactly what his gripe with the quota system was. Fact is that apart from the fact that he did not make the team at the time, his other issue was that he wanted to be in a team that is the best, i.e. he did not want to be in a team where some of the team had to carry others who were not in the team on merit. You need to understand that I am by no means a fan of KP at all, but I believe that he was not the only culprit, or even the biggest culprit in this issue.

You are quite correct that we cannot "break down the individuals" in the Proteas team, but I am not the one who said that he would have been in the Proteas if he did not leave. In fact, I very much doubt if he would have been in the team for one simple reason. One of the main driving forces to get him into the mix was Clive Rice, and CSA chucked anything that Ricey said straight into the rubbish bin. There was and still is no love lost between Rice and CSA. In addition to that, Rice has always been KP's mentor. In fact, he was the first person that KP phoned when he got the offer to captain England. He phoned Rice firts, and the second person that he phoned was Steve Harmison, to ask him if he was prepared to come back, if he (KP) decided to take the captaincy. The next step was to phone each and every player to find out if they would support him. He said, at the time, that if one of the players did not support him, he would have turned down the captaincy.

The other one who was driving to have him in the SA mix was Shaun Pollock.

@ceradyne,

im a lot like sharkbok whose cricket knowledge is superior to mine, when ever i see cricket on TV, its click to see waht else is on.
but i have been following the whole kp saga with a lot of interest, the messages which is reported in the UK and OZ but not confirmed by kp has leftme shaking my head at disgust and even the aussies are behind the english cricket team and IMO no one hates england more then them.

but ur two cents worth is a great read, love the little history and thoughts as to why kp left.
while saffa opinons on kps actions differ big time from every other different race who loves cricket that ive talked too (kiwis, aussies, indians, sri lanakns), one thing was agreed on by many, kp is one of the best players around.

just my two cents though, dosent the fact that kp was a former captain, make his actions even more inexcusable??? i mean WTF is this guy on, o_O,,,england select him for the national team cos he wanted to play at that level and this is how he thanks them. theres looking a gift horse in the mouth and then theres kp, who pissed all over the gift horse and in its mouth.
i dont wish players any ill will, even bakkies headbutted cowan i was pissed off, but its not like they were blood borthers or anything and ive seen worse from NZ players, but to do that to ur own team mate, thats whole different low all together.

with teammates like kp, who the fuck needs opponents.

Sasu, best you have a look at the entire saga, and not this issue in isolation. As far as this issue is concerned, the story that he has given out tactical information to the SA players is pure speculation. The content of the texts have not yet been disclosed. On top of that, do you really think that people like Graeme Smith and Gary Kirsten needs anybody's advice on how to get Strauss' wicket? That was exactly one of the points of interest during the Lord's test, by the English commentators. The luxury that Graeme Smith has a bowler for every England batsman in "his arsenal". They knew exactly what every English batsman's strengths and weaknesses are, and the same goes for their bowling. There were only two unknowns for them, and they were James Taylor and Johnny Bairstow and that was proven. Taylor good a good score in the first innings at Headingly and then they had him sussed out, and that was it. Bairstow had a good Lord's test, and if there was to be a fourth and fifth test, I would have put money on the fact that they would have had him sussed out as well.

The same goes for the England players. they do not need inside info to work out our players either.

Frankly the Aussies and Kiwis have no business about the whole saga, and the only interest that SA have is the fact that they were dragged into the mess by no fault of their own.

As far as KP's captaincy goes, I have discussed that earlier. The fact is that the ECB knew exactly what they let them self in for, when they selected him and appointed him as their captain. They have had players exactly like KP in the past and they dealt with them with great success, but their are a few wise cracks in the ECB who are not as wise as they would like to believe. The names like Gower, Hussein, Botham and Boycott were all in many ways similar to KP. The captaincy issue was handled amateurish IMO.

Not just the Captaincy but KP's request to play in IPL and now this "saga" which it isn't really. Like I mentioned it was out the UK papers Thursday and not even mentioned on Friday.

But on a positive note I found those missing English runs, KP just got 43 for Surrey...

This is typical "bullshit baffles brains" stuff. Two releases on the same day. The one about issues that has to be resolved first before KP would be considered. The second one about KP having been left out because of an injury.

www.sportinglife.com/cricket/video/24815/8007317/we-need-to-talk-about-kevin

www.sportinglife.com/cricket/video/24815/8007317/we-need-to-talk-about-kevin#

Note that he has apparently been complaining about the injury for a long time, yet they selected him for the tests and enjoy the runs he made, as well as the fact that he virtually saved the Headingly test for them.

 So the KP I just on tv playing ODI TODAY is his evil twin ???

WTF lol ECB

World number 1 in Twenty20 and you don't select him... god this is priceless 

Priceless it is Garethed. Put small minded, mean spirited folk in charge and this is the result - bannings.

I have experienced this sort of thing first hand and have nothing but contempt for these little guys who somehow come to power and abuse others because they cannot handle a situation in a decent, honest and mature fashion. They have no idea of what constitutes leadership at all.

Now England can stew on the fact they most likely lost their number 1 ranking because of these small minded twits.

England has not lost this series because of the KP saga. They lost it because the Proteas is the best test side at the moment. Period. Not even KP would have stopped us from beating them. The best they could do with him in the side was a draw at Headingly, and that was a rain-interrupted match. We declared in the second innings, remember. Smith went for the win, and my guess is that if it wasn't for the interruption, we would have had time to post a bit higher score and given ourselves just a bit more time to bowl them out to win the series right there and then. All the commentators agreed that it was a pity that it wasn't a five match series, and I agree. It would have been great to see the Proteas klap them 4-0

Sorry windpomp I know this is all heady stuff but had England picked Bairstwow and KP and left out Taylor  I cannot but think that it might have ended differently.  We will of course never know. But the odds are KP would have made more than 52 runs over Taylor.  KP was on good form and another century was not out of the question.

What is certain is that England shot themselves in the foot and did not give themslves the best chance.

Question now is how long can we stay at 1. Kallis is near the end and Steyn in my view is on the decline. Still a force but age will start to count over the next few years. He could refine his swing bowling and chang e from being an out an out quick  - a process that is already underway.

Smith as an opening bat is also begining to get on a bit but should again be okay for a few more years. He could drop down the order possibly at a later stage.

We could hold this number 1 ranking for say two years? Must beat Oz in Oz.

I completely agree with Beeno1. England did not give themselves the best oppertunity at the win/draw, and maybe it wouldn't of made a difference, but 1-0 was not unrealistic all things considered.

OZ IN OZ IS A MUST!

You guys do realise that the England dressing room was a shambles with the crap between himself and the clique, don't you? It would have been even more difficult for Strauss to handle him after the Headingly test. Strauss does not have the balls to contain KP, and he needs his little circle of friends to assist him. In my opinion, it was a case of six of the one and half a dozen of the other.

They were stuffed with him in the team and they were stuffed without him. All because Strauss is not as strong as everybody made him out to be and he is off the boil with the bat and that has to impact on his captaincy.

Cook has lost his mojo, because when was the last time that he was constantly piling on the runs? None of their bowlers are as shithot as everybody made them out to be. Man for man our bowlers were better than theirs. Even Tahir "outscored" Swann. They do not have a fourth seamer like we have in Kallis. Their only other reasonable back-up bowler, apart from KP, is Trott.

They do not have a Hashim Amla and they do not have a Kallis. They also do not have a Duminy and a Philander in the lower order, who can prolong an innings and still get a decent score. Swann is not that. He either comes in and slogs and then goes out or he comes in and goes again cheaply. He cannot stabilize an innings at the end, the way the Vernon and Duminy did.

We should klap Oz in Oz again, and if we can do that, we will be at the top for quite some time.

Who are the guys pushing for selection - De Lange, Elgar etc?

I do not really know the domestic players. We see nothing of them over here, but from what I understand, Elgar is knocking on the door, and I somehow seem to recall something about De Lange being sent back with in injury very early. Could even have been withdrawn as well.

De Lange returned before the start of the first test, with a stress fracture in his back:

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/18833981