Dramatic axing of Kevin Pietersen mystifies England

London: Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the house of English cricket is collapsing with undue haste — and with many of its key proponents falling on their swords, or being dramatically exterminated, the stage is an inch deep in blood.

The root-and-branch overhaul of the team picked up by far its most controversial victim when Kevin Pietersen was the subject of the latest sacking on Tuesday. He joins coach Andy Flower on the post-Ashes funeral pyre, while Graeme Swann jacked it all in mid-tour. A cloud of mystery surrounds the future of Jonathan Trott, who left after the first Test in Australia suffering from depression. Others who performed poorly in Australia, like Matt Prior and Monty Panesar, walk in the shadow of the guillotine.

But it is the axing of Pietersen, England’s leading run-scorer across all formats and still in his prime at 33, which has caused the most consternation among English fans, who were generally appalled when the news spread fast on social media.

Acting head coach Ashley Giles, Paul Downton, the new managing director of England cricket and captain Alastair Cook have all come to the conclusion that Pietersen, whatever the potential of his personal contributions, is too much of a liability to include in any of their senior squads. They have looked at the talent he offers in spades and spat it back in his face, while bitterly swallowing the legal requirement to pay his contract up until the end of September. And, having alienated a swathe of English cricket followers by making this decision, they know there will be extreme scrutiny as never before on the raw results from now on.

The question that will never be satisfactorily answered is this: just how badly did Pietersen disrupt the dressing room?

Whatever happened in Australia, nothing so serious came to pass that it warranted disciplinary procedures, or else we would have heard about it. But Giles, Downton and Cook have clearly lost all respect for Pietersen; they regard him as some sort of diseased creature, pock-marked with poisonous sores that they believe to be dangerously contagious.

In their mitigation is Pietersen’s stormy history. Ten years ago, before appearing for England, he fell out with the coach and a cortege of senior players at Nottinghamshire. In 2009, four years into his international career and having acquired the captaincy after Michael Vaughan’s resignation, he was dramatically ousted from that job alongside coach Peter Moores as they could not operate alongside each other. A year on from that he left his second county, Hampshire, and then vented his fury on Twitter when rested from the one-day squad. In 2012, he was again temporarily dropped after sending text messages deemed to be “provocative” to South Africa players.

So yes, there is baggage. But the prevailing mood is that if England had the right hierarchy in place, and the right people in charge to create the best possible equilibrium behind the scenes, then Pietersen is such an important asset that he simply has to be accommodated.

Cook has been tactically bereft in his short time as captain, so why is it considered more expedient to keep a misfiring skipper in his job than find a spot in the team for Pietersen? A new coach has to be found anyway. Wouldn’t that new coach want Pietersen playing for him at the start and take on the supplementary job of placating the star batsman as part of the challenge?

This whole shambolic mess reflects most badly, of course, on Pietersen’s erstwhile team-mates. Some prominent writers in the English media have defended Cook. Michael Atherton, in the Times, believes “Pietersen has done well to fall out with Cook, the most easy-going and forgiving of sportsmen.” This blatantly ignores an alternative view of the captain, that of a smiling diplomatic assassin whose hunger for self-preservation goes beyond the team good.

It’s also strange there wasn’t a small group of other players who could take it upon themselves to call him their friend. Was he really that reprehensible as a human? In his early days, before scoring that epic final-day century to win the 2005 Ashes at The Oval, Pietersen had been taken under the wing of Darren Gough and was close to young players too, notably Simon Jones.

Vaughan was particularly adept at getting him onside, and wrote some of the most damning words on England’s current management in the Telegraph: “Look at Flower, Strauss, Cook and Giles Clarke. They would not be in such positions of strength or commanding the same level of respect if Pietersen had not come along and won big games of cricket for England. They managed him when it was easy and the side were winning. But you earn your money as managers and administrators in the tough times when you need to give more time and care.”

The most remarkable aspect of the Pietersen cull is this: it is an unprecedented decision, at least in English cricket, to tell a player that he will never play for his country again. And to think it’s your best batsman you’re telling that to simply beggars belief. An endless river of players, many of unmitigated mediocrity, have passed through the system without ever suffering such ignominy.

The next competitive cricket Pietersen will play will be in the Indian Premier League, where franchises will surely queue up to secure his signature at a big price. His English county side Surrey will also get a great deal out of him this summer. He’ll see plenty more of his wife and son, and might be pretty content with his life. English cricket fans, watching the luckless rookie batsman that replaces him poke about helplessly in the World Twenty20, probably won’t be.