Let me indulge you with a tale of two cricketers. One was the finest spin bowler of all time, the other is currently one of the best batsmen in the world. Both were/are flair players, flamboyant, unpredictable, at times outrageous. Both are the type of players who put arses on seats. Yet while one is rightly revered for his talent, the other is slagged and slated every time he tries something out of the ordinary and it doesn't quite come off.
Is it any surprise that while the one with god like status, Shane Warne, starred for Australia, the one who gets the shit, Kevin Pietersen, plays for England?
It is a curious thing that while the English invented sports which all but invite their participents to indulge in off the cuff acts of beauty and supreme skill, the English distrust their finest exponents of them for it. We have seen it in football where generations of ball players from Clough and Shackleton through Bowles and Currie and on to the likes of Hoddle, Barnes, Gascoigne and Le Tissier were derided as lazy and ultimately discarded in favour of functional donkeys just because they were a bit different. We see it in tennis where a player who is highly talented but a bit of a gobshite like Murray gets nowhere near the level of veneration that a nice clean cut yet not very good Henman recieves. And now once more we are seeing it in cricket where, and lets not forget, Ian Botham came in for flack from time to time.
What exactly do you people want from sport?
I'll tell you what I want. I want to see the very best players being allowed the freedom to do what the hell they wish. I don't want to spend upwards of fifty quid on a ticket to watch Gareth Barry or Michael Carrick pass a ball sideways for 90 minutes while a magician like Wayne Rooney is sat on the bench. I don't want to sit twiddling my thumbs as some nondescript who happened to attend the Geoff Boycott school of batting blocks shot after shot for hour after hour when I could see Pietersen smashing the Aussies all over the show. I want to be entertained, enthralled. I want to go home at the end of a game excited as a small child that I was present to witness a moment of sublime skill that people will talk about for years to come. Ok I know such events are rare but you stand a far greater chance of seeing them with a pietersen or a Rooney in your team than if your side is made up of eleven Michael Athertons or Owen Hargreaves.
Some of you might argue that I am being naive, that winning is everything and that how it is achieved is a secondary consideration. Well lets look at the record books where it states in black and white that England haven't exactly won a great deal in any sport from being the worlds greatest exponents of boring pragmatism either. And anyway the arguement that you can't be flamboyant and successful is, with respect, a load of old bollocks anyway. Brazil and France have proved it in football time and time again, likewise Australia and the West Indies in cricket. Only in England do you seem to lack the wit to appreciate that if you give your most talented performers the freedom to express themselves, the whole will become stronger as a result.
So get off Pietersens back will you? Yes the shot he tried yesterday wasn't the cleverest but fair play for him trying it. Look after these special talents and they will look after you.
Is it any surprise that while the one with god like status, Shane Warne, starred for Australia, the one who gets the shit, Kevin Pietersen, plays for England?
It is a curious thing that while the English invented sports which all but invite their participents to indulge in off the cuff acts of beauty and supreme skill, the English distrust their finest exponents of them for it. We have seen it in football where generations of ball players from Clough and Shackleton through Bowles and Currie and on to the likes of Hoddle, Barnes, Gascoigne and Le Tissier were derided as lazy and ultimately discarded in favour of functional donkeys just because they were a bit different. We see it in tennis where a player who is highly talented but a bit of a gobshite like Murray gets nowhere near the level of veneration that a nice clean cut yet not very good Henman recieves. And now once more we are seeing it in cricket where, and lets not forget, Ian Botham came in for flack from time to time.
What exactly do you people want from sport?
I'll tell you what I want. I want to see the very best players being allowed the freedom to do what the hell they wish. I don't want to spend upwards of fifty quid on a ticket to watch Gareth Barry or Michael Carrick pass a ball sideways for 90 minutes while a magician like Wayne Rooney is sat on the bench. I don't want to sit twiddling my thumbs as some nondescript who happened to attend the Geoff Boycott school of batting blocks shot after shot for hour after hour when I could see Pietersen smashing the Aussies all over the show. I want to be entertained, enthralled. I want to go home at the end of a game excited as a small child that I was present to witness a moment of sublime skill that people will talk about for years to come. Ok I know such events are rare but you stand a far greater chance of seeing them with a pietersen or a Rooney in your team than if your side is made up of eleven Michael Athertons or Owen Hargreaves.
Some of you might argue that I am being naive, that winning is everything and that how it is achieved is a secondary consideration. Well lets look at the record books where it states in black and white that England haven't exactly won a great deal in any sport from being the worlds greatest exponents of boring pragmatism either. And anyway the arguement that you can't be flamboyant and successful is, with respect, a load of old bollocks anyway. Brazil and France have proved it in football time and time again, likewise Australia and the West Indies in cricket. Only in England do you seem to lack the wit to appreciate that if you give your most talented performers the freedom to express themselves, the whole will become stronger as a result.
So get off Pietersens back will you? Yes the shot he tried yesterday wasn't the cleverest but fair play for him trying it. Look after these special talents and they will look after you.
jackfrost
Pro 
im with you on this