Kevin Pietersen's comments after the second Test against South Africa at Headingley raised issues that have dominated the headlines.
The story took another twist when Kevin put a video on YouTube in which he made himself available for all forms of England cricket and we can only hope that is the end of the story for now.
Frankly, as players, all this has been a distraction we could well do without as we approach a massively important final match at Lord’s, one we must win to retain our hard-earned status as the No 1 ranked side in world cricket.
The stand-off between Kevin and the England Cricket Board over his future availability was not something we needed going into a big Test series.
Sublime innings: Kevin Pietersen hit 149 at HeadingleyNor, when we have a must-win game, was it ideal to see some of the things that have been said. To me it’s all been going on too long. I’m sure the two parties will have had a lot of discussions. All the players want is this to be put to bed so we can concentrate on the game.
It does seem bizarre that, just a week after Kevin played such a great innings, people have speculated that he might not even be in the squad for the Lord’s Test.
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I’m sure all the ECB want — and the coach and the captain — is for the team to play to their potential this week. And they will not want anything to disturb that, in particular the preparation from tomorrow up until Thursday morning.
Going into the match without Kevin wouldn’t be ideal because, as everyone who saw the knock last week will know, an innings like that is invaluable.
At the same time, no player is ever bigger than the team.
Kevin talked about having issues within the dressing room. What’s frustrating is that this was, literally, the first we knew about it. Kevin has mentioned nothing to us. From the time Kevin first announced he was quitting one-day cricket and why, we have tried to get on with things the best we could, even though there has been a lot of speculation.
Stand off: Pietersen is at loggerheads with the ECB
All I’d say is that to be successful as we have the past few years, you need all 11 players pulling in the same direction.
England have coped with players going in the past. When Kevin quit one-day cricket, Ian Bell stepped up at the top of the order. In T20s there was a hole and young Alex Hales filled it brilliantly. Senior players also seem to pull together and up their game.
Leaving aside all possible distractions, this is a hugely important game for us.
We worked hard for the No 1 Test ranking and if we were to lose it to South Africa at Lord’s, it would feel like we let it slip too easily after not long enough at the top.
Off the boil: England have lost five out ten Tests this yearI can’t put my finger on why we haven’t kept our form since beating India 4-0 last summer. It could be that, having chased something so hard for so long, we suddenly found ourselves with nothing left to chase and that, once we got to No 1, teams played against us with a different mentality.
We were the ones being chased. We gave a much improved performance at Headingley and with better luck in the first innings might have pulled off victory.
Importantly, Stuart Broad showed what a match-winning bowler he can be. But even if we do win we’ll need to have a serious think about how we play our cricket and how to keep on improving.
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