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Ricky Ponting backs up Kevin Pietersen over England’s bullying culture Ricky Ponting backs up Kevin Pietersen over England’s bullying culture
(about 7 hours later)
The former Australia captain Ricky Ponting has backed up Kevin Pietersen’s claims that there was a bullying culture in England’s cricket team and believes Alastair Cook should have taken action to stop it happening. Ricky Ponting has endorsed Kevin Pietersen’s claims of an unpleasant culture in recent England teams, and laid the blame for it with Andrew Strauss rather than Andy Flower.
Pietersen’s allegations that the England bowlers “ruled with fear” and demanded apologies for fielding mistakes are made in KP: The Autobiography, which is published on Thursday. Ponting, who captained Australia between 2004 and 2011 before leaving his post in the aftermath of the 3-1 defeat on home soil, believes there is substance to Pietersen’s claims and singles out Jimmy Anderson and Graeme Swann. He also insisted it would never have been allowed to happen in the opposition dressing room. Ponting, who captained Australia to three Ashes series defeats out of four between 2005 and 2011, claimed that England’s spectacular collapse to a 5-0 whitewash last winter did not surprise him, because of the divisions that had been papered over by previous success.
“We saw them doing it, Anderson was always the same, and Swann,” Ponting said in the Sydney newspaper the Daily Telegraph. “The pointing of fingers and you’d hear a few expletives if there was a misfield or a dropped catch. He named Jimmy Anderson and Graeme Swann, two of the dominant clique of senior bowlers referred to as bullies by Pietersen in his autobiography, as the worst offenders, and said that even the early departures of Jonathan Trott and Swann from the Ashes tour could have been foreseen.
“The guys who were doing it were the so-called leaders. That’s where the captain has got to come in, not wait and let little things turn into big things. That’s what it sounds like has happened in this England team.” “We saw them doing it – Anderson was always the same, and Swann,” said Ponting. “The pointing of fingers and you’d hear a few expletives if there was a misfield or a dropped catch. The guys who were doing it were the so-called leaders. That’s where the captain has got to come in, not wait and let little things turn into big things. That’s what it sounds like has happened in this England team.
Ponting added: “If a young bloke had dropped a catch and a bowler went off at him, that’s just not acceptable. No one means to drop a catch, no one means to bowl a bad ball, no one means to play a bad shot. It just happens in a game and you have to accept it and move on.” “They had a lot of very good players that were able to achieve a lot of success as a team. But if you could just get inside of them and start pulling them apart, we always had a feeling they would implode pretty quickly and that’s what’s happened over the past 12 months.
Ponting is the only Australia captain in history to have lost three Ashes series and was eventually replaced by Michael Clarke, who masterminded last winter’s 5-0 whitewash along with the coach, Darren Lehmann. However, the Tasmanian believes there was evidence of divisions in the England team long before then. “I wasn’t surprised with Trott, I wasn’t surprised with Swann retiring when he did. When the ship started to go down, he jumped off pretty quickly, and now all the Pietersen stuff.”
“They had lot of very good players that were able to achieve a lot of success as a team,” he said. “But if you could just get inside of them and start pulling them apart, we always had a feeling they would implode pretty quickly and that’s what’s happened over the past 12 months. Pietersen tweeted a link to the quotes, which appeared in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph – not usually one of his favourite newspapers, especially as it shares copy with the Brisbane Courier Mail – with the remark: “PLS READ THIS.”
“I wasn’t surprised with Trott [leaving the Ashes tour], I wasn’t surprised with Swann retiring when he did. When the ship started to go down, he jumped off pretty quickly, and now all the Pietersen stuff.” Shortly after that, he retweeted a comment by Michael Carberry, England’s opener in Australia and a former Hampshire team-mate, that “I’ve never had any issues with Kev. We have always got on well and still do.” That was in response to one of the points in the leaked document from the England and Wales Cricket Board which claimed that Pietersen had called Carberry “useless” and asked: “Aren’t there any better players at county level?”
Pietersen tweeted a link to a story containing Ponting’s quotes to his near two million Twitter followers with the remark: “PLS READ THIS.” Carberry has also been critical of the ECB since the Ashes tour, in a Guardian interview in March, when he said: “Through the tour, certainly, Kev was very helpful to me … In England’s position you want to retain that knowledge as much as you can”.
Pietersen has told his side of the story following the expiry of a confidentiality clause agreed when his England and Wales Cricket Board contract was severed. Carberry also expressed disappointment in Ashley Giles in that interview, but Pietersen tweeted his delight at Lancashire’s appointment of the former England one-day coach as the permanent successor to Peter Moores, which was confirmed on Wednesday.
The ECB has not commented on Pietersen’s claims, but will come under increasing pressure to do so as the controversy continues to rage. That meant Giles would inevitably be asked about Pietersen at an Old Trafford press conference, and specifically his views on a bullying culture in the England dressing room. But he refused to be drawn.
Pietersen’s promotional tour is continuing and a fresh interview was published by Cricinfo on Wednesday. “I don’t want to get sucked into it,” said Giles, a former team-mate as well as coach of Pietersen. “This is not the day to talk about Kev’s book.I played in the dressing room with Kev and got on very well with him, but similarly with those other guys as well. I coached them and never had any major issues with them, so that’s pretty much as much as much as I want to say.”
The 34-year-old denies threatening to quit the Ashes tour before the third Test in Perth, as alleged in the leaked ECB document. Giles described Pietersen as “a million-pound asset” in January when naming him in a 30-man squad for the World Twenty20 earlier this year – but conceded that now seems certain to be the last England squad in which he will ever be included.
He said: “No, no. Why would I do that? It’s a ridiculous story. “He would still consider himself to be a multimillion-pound asset, I’m sure, he’s that sort of player,” Giles added. “He’s the big show, if you like, but things have unfolded and he’s not going to play for England again by the looks of it. I’m sure it’s disappointing for him but everyone has to move on.”
“The only issue was with my knee. I almost didn’t play in that Test. My knee was really hurting. I was batting the day before the Test and I walked out of the nets and told Andy that I was really struggling. I called the physio over. But that’s not the same as trying to quit a tour, is it? He laughed off a suggestion that Lancashire might even be interested in signing Pietersen, who is a free agent after his release by Surrey. “Freddie [Flintoff] and KP?” said Giles, having confirmed that he would be keen to talk to Flintoff to see if he wants to extend his surprise Twenty20 comeback. “Get Harmy [Steve Harmison, another member of the 2005 Ashes-winning team] back in the gym as well.”
“I had the option of micro-fracture surgery before the Ashes in England but I said ’No, I want to play these 10 Tests’.” Flintoff is expected to confirm shortly that he will play in Australia’s Big Bash this winter, probably with Brisbane.
On a bullying-related matter, Pietersen strenuously denies suggestions that he singled out team-mate James Taylor for criticism during a dressing-room tirade at Headingley in 2012. Pietersen insists there was no such outburst.
He said: “There’s this lie out there that I rubbished him in front of the team. It’s not true. I spoke to Andy Flower about him. It was a private conversation.
“It was a senior player talking to the coach in private. I expressed my views when asked. To have private conversations turned into a media story on Monday morning that I was ridiculing James Taylor in the dressing room is ridiculous.”
Pietersen now hopes that more players will come out to back up his own claims about bullying.
“I needed to bring up that issue,” he said. “It wasn’t a nice environment. Guys were picked on big time. Some other players will come out eventually and say the same thing.”