The next few months are going to be quite interesting for English cricket as they look to chart a new course following the crushing 5-0 Ashes loss. A few international careers will end and some will be launched.
The early indications are that Alastair Cook and Andy Flower will be spared the axe and are likely to be retained which means the focus will shift to the underperforming senior players – Ian Bell, Kevin Pietersen and James Anderson.
While Bell and Anderson have escaped attention, the biggest debate centres around English cricket’s enfant terrible, Pietersen.
The South African-born batsman’s relationship with England fans has been prickly with many still to forgive him for the textgate row with former captain Andrew Strauss during the South Africa series in 2012.
He was the only batsman who got regular starts in Australia but frittered it away with atrocious shots which has distanced him further from the fans, some of whom are now baying for his blood.
Pietersen says he is fired up to regain the Ashes in 2015 and he has found support in former England captain Michael Vaughan, who believes the star batsman has two more years left in him.
I support that viewpoint to a certain extent. Pietersen, who was the top run-getter with 294 runs in the Ashes, cannot be solely held accountable for the loss which was a collective failure.
If Cook and Flower are retained, then so should KP and the other three seniors because the defeat Down Under was a rare malfunction in an otherwise excellent run where they had lost only one series – at home to South Africa in 2012 – of the last six played in two years.
The senior players, including Pietersen, deserve another chance before they are shown the door.
The back-to-back Test series against Sri Lanka and India – six months from now – should be their final chance to perform or perish.
Those two series will also give the England selectors a good platform to test a few youngsters in the rebuilding process.
England are already without Jonathan Trott, who is not likely to return soon, which leaves them with only Ian Bell’s experience in the middle. Joe Root has not yet done enough to be guaranteed a regular batting spot and the other contenders Gary Ballance and Jonny Bairstow barely looked the part in Australia.
The only bright spot is all-rounder Ben Stokes who bats low down at No6 and one wonders how long he will shoulder the batting.
Pietersen, with his 104-Test experience and 8,181 runs, has to be in the mix because he is the only top order batsman, despite his recent failure, who can swing sessions and matches England’s way. And they desperately need victories to get back on track.
A lot, though, will depend upon whether Cook and Flower want KP in the team. He is a difficult character, and as Vaughan pointed out in a newpaper column yesterday, the onus on reining in players with such huge egos rests with the captain.
But if they feel he cannot figure in the future plans because they cannot handle him, then they are leaving very little room to succeed with a bunch of rookies.
