Andy Flower fixed his inquisitor with a stare and did his utmost not to give any hint of his true feelings.
‘It’s a bit tricky to answer hypothetical questions,’ said England’s team director when asked if the door was still open for Kevin Pietersen to change his mind about retiring from one-day international cricket. ‘I don’t think we should go down that road.’
There is a prominent commentator who is so convinced that Pietersen will do a Frank Sinatra and one day again wear the blue of limited-overs England that he is thinking of putting money on it.
But is there really any chance of that and are England wrong to insist that Pietersen cannot play in Twenty20 cricket, thus reducing their chances of successfully defending the world trophy in Sri Lanka in September, if he bales out of the 50-over format?
I share the view of Pietersen and, in truth, many other current players in feeling that the one-day international is a tired, formulaic style of the game whose days should be numbered.
There has been so much tinkering with 50-over cricket in a doomed attempt to freshen it up that I am now not sure how many power-plays are allowed, when teams can take them and how many balls they are using in an innings. Do you remember the days when substitutes were allowed to play? What a great idea that was.
Everybody bar greedy administrators know there is too much cricket and something has to give if we are not going to flog elite players into the ground and bore spectators rigid with the sheer volume of it all. And to me it has to be 50-over international cricket.
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Flower spent a passionate 20 minutes speaking to the press at a soggy Edgbaston at the end of the third Test when he made it clear that a key England target remains their first 50-over World Cup.
He knows exactly what would happen if he made a ‘special’ case of Pietersen and told him that, yes, his long-standing wish of retiring from 50-over cricket would be granted and he could just concentrate on the Test and Twenty20 games. Other players, probably starting with Graeme Swann, would want to do the same.
While the international calendar remains so congested Flower has to do his best to manage it and while 50-over cricket remains a big part of the game then he has to respect it.
It is abundantly clear, of course, what should give in Pietersen’s world to allow him more time with his family and to rest his body.
The Indian Premier League is a domestic competition and should play second fiddle to all international cricket. It would be lovely if all England players said no thanks to the IPL riches and dedicated themselves solely to their country, for which they get very well paid without grabbing the IPL dollar.
Pietersen will just not do that. Which is why England were right to take the stance they did and why that door really should remain shut to any one-day return.
Old blue eyes has surely taken his last encore on the international limited-overs stage.
Over the HillWhat were we saying in this column about cricket finally seeing sense about bad light and playing on with the red ball under floodlights?
Well that went out of the window on Sunday when, ludicrously, umpires Tony Hill and Kumar Dharmasena twice took the players off while the Edgbaston floodlights shone down on the third Test and England were making hay with the bat.
Farce: Hill and Dharmasena called the players off for bad light on day fourA crass lack of common sense was compounded when Hill gave an interview to Mike Atherton on Sky Sports and suggested that spectators should try facing 90mph bowling if they didn’t like it and that they only lost eight overs anyway, the implication being they should be grateful for what they got.
Not at £43 for the day’s play they should not. Not when there is so much other top quality sport they could watch instead. Hill is one of the worst umpires on the elite list. Now he has proven himself to be one of the most unenlightened, too.
Shiv mysteryThe absence of Shiv Chanderpaul, the No 1 ranked batsman in Test cricket, from the third Test remains a mystery.
Darren Sammy talked of him having ‘an unfortunate incident’. It was said his shin was injured. Or maybe it was his side.
Could it just be that Chanderpaul, having not been picked for the one-day games, is the latest big name to have fallen out with West Indies and that his days as a Test batsman might be numbered?
Bumble's final word...The first Test series of the summer is done and dusted and, for England, it will get a lot harder from now on in.
One-day cricket is West Indies’ strong-suit and what a shame it is that we won’t be seeing a shoot-out between Kevin Pietersen and Chris Gayle.
But first it’s hard-hat time for me as I’m off to the Twenty20. Start the car...
More... Top Spin: If Pietersen can afford to retire, we know where we stand England recall Bell in only change to ODI squad as they begin life after Pietersen
