Ep3
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00:00I made a mistake. I made a mistake. I've talked about it.
00:07So there's not much more that I can do on the situational or on the topic.
00:12What about loyalty, you know?
00:14Yeah, but remember...
00:15If there's an IPL, I want to move on. What about a bit of loyalty?
00:18No, no.
00:21It wasn't that good at captaincy, was it?
00:24The fact that Peter Moore was in charge, it was a car crash waiting to happen.
00:27We didn't really fall out. It just didn't quite connect.
00:30It's been hard, it's been horrible, and it's been hurtful and disappointing.
00:33Our careers are only so short, so you've got to make hay while the sun shines.
00:37What a way to go to number one in the world.
00:40Those text messages, that hurt me.
00:43There's something about Kevin, there really is.
00:45Kevin was hung, drawn and quartered over a mythological allegation.
00:50I don't think he should have played for England again.
00:58What a shot that is to go to 100.
01:01It's his third 100 in succession in test matches in England.
01:07Having won the Ashes in his first test series,
01:10Peterson had become a permanent fixture in the England team.
01:16It's all he needs to get the three figures.
01:18Simply sensational to watch, Kevin Peterson.
01:21Peterson, the boy from Durban, had shown us glimpses of his genius.
01:25He was now about to show the cricketing world things they had never seen before.
01:32What a shot that is from Peterson, that is remarkable.
01:36Peterson at his best.
01:40What a shot from Kevin Peterson.
01:42Another wow moment is the switch hit.
01:44I mean, the MCC have virtually had to change the laws of the game
01:48because of this lad from Petersburg.
01:50He's suddenly deciding that he's going to turn around left-handed
01:54and hit what will become cow corner for six.
01:57Explain.
01:58I was just doing what I felt was natural
02:00and what I felt would be a run scoring opportunity.
02:03A ball has landed in a certain area.
02:05I've turned around and whacked him another way
02:07because it feels normal.
02:09It didn't feel like I was doing anything out of the ordinary
02:12because I practiced it and repetition trains the brain.
02:18Well, well, what next?
02:21Went all the way.
02:23When I saw him playing Murali, I just thought, this guy's a genius.
02:27It was the game awareness about where the gaps in the field were
02:31and having the array of shots and the confidence to play it
02:35against the best bowlers in the world.
02:37I think that was what made KP stand out.
02:39The better the bowler, the more engaged he was in the battle
02:42and the more determined he was to take the game to them.
02:45Do you think we, as commentators, as people who watch you,
02:48should be a bit more lenient towards you?
02:50You know, we applaud you when you do that
02:53and you get labelled Dumbslog Millionaire.
02:55No, but that was a proper slog.
02:57But there were occasions. There was Suleiman Ben in Jamaica.
03:02High, somebody calls, Randen calls, Peterson is walking, taken!
03:07Harris at edge, Baston.
03:09Catch it, catch it, catch it!
03:11Catch it is the cry! He's gone!
03:13There was a sweep shot at Cardiff.
03:18That's interesting and that is just what Australia wants,
03:22just what England do not.
03:24It did frustrate, but the last thing you want from KP
03:28is to try and clip his wings and become just like the rest of us.
03:32He had something different and you had to give him some wriggle room
03:35to be able to play his way and if you weren't prepared to do that,
03:38then you're not going to get the most out of him.
03:40I would always back him to attack.
03:42It's probably the comments afterwards that that's what winds the team up.
03:46That's the way it is, that's the way I play at school.
03:49A lot of runs off the sweep today.
03:51Especially round up Gucci as a tapan coach.
03:53Just think about it, you're world class.
03:55You don't do that all the time.
03:57I'm delighted to be able to introduce you to the new England Test
04:01and one day it's national captain Kevin Peterson.
04:04To see this is a wonderful opportunity to grab it with both hands
04:08and to go with it and run with it.
04:10What sort of captain do you think you made
04:12and do you think it came to you a little bit too early?
04:16Simple.
04:18I never understood failure because I hadn't failed.
04:21I never understood families because I didn't have a family.
04:25I didn't understand being homesick because I'd never been homesick.
04:29Those three things are so vital to being able to deal
04:34with every single player in your team.
04:37I didn't understand a bloke suffering from bad form.
04:40So how am I going to go and relate to a bloke who's struggling?
04:43The hardest thing for him, and I'm sure he would admit this himself,
04:47he was quite self-absorbed and self-focused.
04:49I think he just got frustrated that people couldn't do what he wanted them to do.
04:55Right, Kev, there's a lot of pictures of captains of South Africa
04:58that have gone to this school.
05:00There is one Kevin Peterson there.
05:03When you were playing here all those years ago,
05:05if someone had said to you a picture would be up on the wall
05:08in the changing rooms as a captain of England, what would you have said?
05:12Just to play at Lords, play at the SCG, play at all those amazing grounds
05:15is something that I would never, ever have dreamed of.
05:18So to see that up there is actually quite nice.
05:20Do you know why you're in red?
05:21Captain of England.
05:22Would you prefer it not to be in red?
05:24It doesn't bother me. Like I've said as a youngster,
05:26my goal is to become a cricketer.
05:28I know you're trying to trick me into saying I would have loved it
05:30to have been for South Africa, but like I'll say to you again,
05:33I'm very well versed in what I'm supposed to say
05:35and what I'm supposed to not say.
05:37I've achieved everything that I could possibly have wanted to achieve
05:42in the game of cricket.
05:43The only thing I never won was a 50-over World Cup.
05:48Was I a good captain? Should I have been given the captaincy?
05:50Absolutely not, but I was the only one playing all three forms of the game.
05:55What did you make of him as a captain?
05:58Wasn't that good at captaincy, was he?
06:02I think Kevin was a good lieutenant, but not a good captain.
06:07There's a way of getting your message across
06:09and cajoling people into doing things.
06:11That wasn't really Kev. Kev was overbearing.
06:13You do this, you do that.
06:16The fact that Peter Moores was in charge and they were polar opposites.
06:19It was a car crash waiting to happen.
06:21Most people find Peter Moores a thoroughly decent guy.
06:23Would you agree with that? Yes.
06:25But you describe him as the woodpecker in the dressing room.
06:27What do you mean by that?
06:28Somebody who came and just kept pecking your head.
06:32Train, do this, this, that.
06:35When you're in the international environment,
06:37you need to take pressure away from players,
06:39not put pressure onto players.
06:41He put pressure onto players, senior players, challenging them.
06:44Clearly ask questions, say, are you doing this?
06:47But understand what has made me successful
06:50and understand what will continue to make me successful.
06:53I was still a young coach.
06:54These areas, I look and I pushed at this.
06:56You think, well, actually, you should have taken some more time.
06:58So I don't look at my relationship with Kev
07:01as something that deteriorated over time.
07:04We didn't really fall out, it just didn't quite connect.
07:07Kevin Peterson and Peter Moores' tenure as England captain and coach
07:10lasted barely five months.
07:12It's been hard, it's been horrible,
07:14and it's been hurtful and disappointing.
07:16It did come too early to him,
07:17but I think there was other things in his life at that time.
07:20It was blatant, the IPL was huge, and I don't blame him for that.
07:26In the one-day tour of India where there was the terrorist attack,
07:29and we were all stuffed in a hotel room
07:31talking about whether we were going to come back or not,
07:33and Kevin, as captain, says,
07:35I'm desperate for us to come back.
07:37I just want us to win a game.
07:39And it might have been me, it might have been someone else,
07:41said, **** it, if you want to come back,
07:42because you've got an IPL auction coming up.
07:44He went, that is not it whatsoever, absolutely not.
07:46And it was so transparently false
07:48that everyone in the room could see through it.
07:52New coach and captain Andy Flower and Andrew Strauss
07:55now face the unprecedented task
07:58of managing a centrally contracted player
08:01who wanted time away from England to play for big money in India.
08:07Let's be honest, you were fine until the IPL came.
08:10You know, it was what you wanted, it was where you wanted to be.
08:13Yeah. All the best players in the world
08:15were having opportunities to go there for a period of time
08:19and going to...
08:22Yeah, fill their wallets.
08:24And our careers are only so short,
08:26so you've got to make hay while the sun shines.
08:28IPL made a massive difference.
08:30While KP was making his way through the county game,
08:34it was all about playing for England.
08:36That was the pinnacle of the game.
08:38And then the IPL came along,
08:40and I think it just played very much into KP's natural inclinations,
08:44glitz, glamour, incredible kind of adulation
08:47for the players that did well over there.
08:49Obviously, a pretty big pay packet as well,
08:51which, you know, you wouldn't begrudge anyone being quite enticed by.
08:56Despite the distractions, this England team was on the way up,
09:00and they started by winning their first ICC World Tournament.
09:08That will do nicely.
09:10England have won the World 2020 Men's Final.
09:15Peterson was named Man of the Tournament
09:17and carried his form into the English summer
09:20during a 4-0 Test Series battering of India.
09:25What a shot that is.
09:26That really is as good as it gets.
09:29That's 100, Kevin Peterson. That didn't take long.
09:32Those great teams need great players,
09:34and Kevin Peterson is certainly one of them.
09:37Yes! Gone this time.
09:39What a way to go to number one in the world.
09:42They batted better, they bowled better, they fielded better.
09:45They have been by far the better team.
09:48You had Strauss and Cook and Bell and Trott.
09:51That was a good line-up to play in, wasn't it?
09:53Perfect for your game as well.
09:54It was amazing.
09:55I mean, batting with Bell and Collingwood,
09:57and then also batting with Cookie,
09:59it was incredible because our games suited each other.
10:02It was an amazing line-up to play in.
10:04A lot of people misconstrued the dressing room
10:07and think he was hated and this and that.
10:09Everyone wanted a happy Kevin Peterson on the team
10:11who was just going out there and batting.
10:13Talent-wise, I don't think there's many better players
10:15we've ever played for England.
10:17Belief, that was the biggest thing he had.
10:21Oh, and he's hit that one hard.
10:24England remained at number one throughout the winter
10:27and Peterson was playing some of the best cricket of his career.
10:32Huge roars here, massive moment for Kevin Peterson.
10:35Extraordinary innings from an extraordinary player.
10:41But when South Africa arrived in the summer of 2012,
10:44as the number two-ranked Test team, things began to unravel.
10:51Towards the back end of my time as captain,
10:53it was increasingly obvious to me
10:55that KP wasn't enjoying his cricket playing for England.
10:58In my mind, I could see him making a decision
11:00where I'm going to become one of these T20 specialists.
11:03I'm sick and tired of English cricket.
11:05I don't like the way I'm being treated in this environment.
11:08I could see a big falling out happening
11:10and I could see him leaving English cricket for good.
11:13What about loyalty? You know, Natal,
11:15they can't do it for me, I'm moving on.
11:17Notts, they can't do it for me, I'm moving on.
11:20England, there's an IPL, I want to move on.
11:22What about a bit of loyalty?
11:23No, no, I'm incredibly loyal to Natal.
11:25I've come back to play for Natal on numerous occasions.
11:28I never wanted to move on from England.
11:30I wanted my schedule monitored
11:32because I was the only player in the England set-up
11:35playing 2020s Test cricket, one-day internationals,
11:38and had a very lucrative contract in the IPL.
11:41They do it now.
11:42They look after every single person's schedule.
11:45I was playing the most number of days of cricket,
11:48in international cricket apart from MS Dhoni at the time.
11:51I said, just manage my workload, that's all I wanted.
11:54I didn't want to move on from England, are you crazy?
11:59After a triple century from Hashim Amla,
12:01England went 1-0 down at the Oval.
12:07Up goes the finger, the end of Jimmy Anderson,
12:10and what a performance from Graeme Smith and his men.
12:13But it wasn't the opposition that was hurting Pedersen the most.
12:18One thing that you found very difficult to take
12:21was the fake Twitter account going round, KP, genius.
12:25Genius.
12:26Why can you take that? Why did that hurt you so much?
12:29It was players in the dressing room associated to it.
12:31That really annoyed me.
12:32Why did you challenge the guys?
12:34I was distraught, Nasser. I just went completely insular.
12:37I completely went right into my bubble.
12:40I was like... I was gone.
12:42That parody account was brutal.
12:44The parody account was coming from people inside that dressing room.
12:47It started off as a bit of fun, became very nasty, very personal.
12:51Kevin took that to heart, he took it personally.
12:54He was very upset by it.
12:55It was funny because it was so close to the bone.
12:58Kevin loved that.
12:59I remember in the dressing room, the Oval laughing his head off,
13:02saying, this is brilliant, I'm the only one with an account.
13:04Do you not see, however much Kevin puts on this big ego,
13:07everyone will feel insecure.
13:09Do you not see that there is a problem of a parody account?
13:12Oh, no, yeah, I do agree.
13:13But if he'd turned around and said, look, lads,
13:16if anyone knows anything about this, I'm not happy with it,
13:19it would have stopped, I'm sure.
13:20But, like I say, I had nothing to do with it.
13:22He was a mate of Broadie's, but he was convinced
13:24that it was people within the team.
13:26It's probably not a great thing for people to be reading
13:29those sort of things out in the dressing room,
13:31and for you to be taking the **** out of one of your team-mates,
13:34but at the same time, welcome to a cricket dressing room.
13:37You know, that sort of stuff happens all the time.
13:41Should Strauss and Flower have done more to stop it?
13:44Yeah, maybe, but social media at that time was a new tool,
13:47it was a new virgin thing, no-one really understood it.
13:50My regret, and I've thought about this a lot since it all unfolded,
13:54you know, I had a good relationship with KP.
13:57I think when some of his other friends started leaving the team
14:01for whatever reason, I think I could have kept close to him
14:04and actually I became more distant from him.
14:06You know, I think he got quite isolated
14:08as a result of that, potentially,
14:10and, you know, that was in my power to alter that.
14:17And it led to one of the great innings I've seen
14:20in one of your worst weeks as a cricketer.
14:22Headingly, Leeds Test match.
14:24How can you play like that when you're in such a bad space?
14:31Game on.
14:34There's another.
14:36I was just watching that ball,
14:38and I was playing against South Africa,
14:40and I was just like, you know, this could be my final ever innings.
14:44That's short, that's gone.
14:46It was brilliant, it was unbelievable to watch.
14:49He had something to prove that day.
14:51Whatever you think about me as a player,
14:53I can still do things that no-one else in this team can do.
14:57You've got to give him credit pretty much any time he needed to turn it on,
15:01he turned it on throughout his career.
15:06Dale Stone walked off the field that day and said,
15:09wow, he's angry.
15:10Maybe England should have just had him angry more often.
15:14There it is, make me a wicket.
15:16Graham would come up to me and say,
15:18listen, I need you to bowl four overs here as quickly as you can,
15:21maybe five overs, you know, give me all you've got, we need a wicket.
15:25What's that goal?
15:26He's ticking here, can he beat us?
15:29After one and a half overs,
15:31Graham came running up from slip and he said,
15:33what's your plan?
15:34I think I'd gone for almost 20, you know,
15:36so Kevin had recognised that I was a threat
15:38and the way to counter that was to actually take me on.
15:42And he got rid of me in two overs, that was it.
15:44I was out of the attack and he continued to swat everybody else around.
15:47So he was that kind of player.
15:50Tucks it away on the left side, what a player, what a hundred.
15:54There's been a lot of talk about Kevin Peterson off the field this summer.
15:59He's let his back do the talking here at Headingley.
16:02There's something about Kevin, there really is.
16:06Where will you be with your cricket in a year's time?
16:08I don't know, we'll see.
16:10Did you underline your importance, though, to the side
16:12and did you underline it to the public in games like this, big games?
16:18That's a tough question.
16:19You felt a little bit bullied by that Twitter account.
16:22James Taylor has written recently that that Test match,
16:25he found you very difficult to take.
16:27You were his hero growing up
16:29and yet there was a bit of bullying from you towards him in that Test match
16:33where you blatantly made it crystal clear
16:35that you didn't rate him and he shouldn't be near the Test team.
16:37What led into that Test match, Nasser,
16:39was that Owen Morgan was the next cab off the rank.
16:42He should have played that Test match.
16:44England picked James Taylor, who I thought couldn't play.
16:49And that week for me was then just an absolute disaster.
16:51I had to bat with a guy who the guys were just laughing at while I was batting.
16:55The week goes from bad to worse with Taxgate.
16:57Well, it didn't go great.
17:00How do you get into a position where you are texting the opposition players
17:04or direct messaging him?
17:06No, texting, because they're my mates, Nasser.
17:08Andrew Strauss had said to us,
17:10under no circumstance were you going to talk to these guys.
17:12I'm going, shut up, you idiot.
17:14When Mornay Walker runs into Valttermi,
17:16I'm going to try and whack him as far as I can whack him
17:18because he's a buddy of mine and that personal thing is up to me.
17:21I'm going to try and whack him because he's a buddy of mine
17:23and that personal thing is up to me.
17:25I don't want him at the end of the match to go,
17:27KP, how are you going there, buddy?
17:29I want to know that I've absolutely belted him.
17:31But off the field, I don't need anybody to tell me that I can't speak to people.
17:34He was being a d***. He was.
17:38I think there's this impression there that I was always telling KP
17:41to not speak to the opposition
17:43and that's something that I don't think I'd ever do to KP.
17:46He did that whoever we played against.
17:48He always had his friends in the opposition.
17:50Those text messages, that hurt me.
17:54That hurt me and certainly the stuff around how to get me out.
17:59I just don't see how you can do that personally.
18:02I think if you're playing for a team
18:05and potentially you're helping the opposition
18:08get one over one of your own players, no.
18:12I don't think he should have played for England again.
18:15And I said it at the time.
18:17If he was proven guilty to have sent the opposing team those text messages,
18:22he shouldn't have played again.
18:24The big question in Textgate with Strauss
18:26was did Kevin Pedersen give the South Africans advice
18:29on how to get Strauss out?
18:31It's plausibility. He said it was banter, it was a conversation,
18:34which is right. It was banter and it was a conversation.
18:37And did he give advice to a South African bowler?
18:40Did he tell Mornay Morkel to go round the wicket? No.
18:43So he's right about that too.
18:45But if Mornay Morkel said, do you reckon I should go round the wicket to him,
18:48he said, yeah, good idea.
18:50I felt that Kevin was hung, drawn and quartered
18:53over a mythological allegation,
18:55which was that, yeah, he might have been abusing Strauss
18:58to his mates in the other team, and that's unsavoury and unacceptable,
19:03but he wasn't giving tactical advice
19:05and it was that which was used as the real stick to beat him with.
19:08I tell you what, there were three South Africans
19:11who were having conversations with him
19:13and they were absolutely gobsmacked.
19:15The word inappropriate was used on a number of occasions.
19:20They were really surprised, really surprised.
19:25Peterson was dropped for the final test of the series at Lourdes,
19:29a match England had to win to stop South Africa replacing them
19:33as the number one test team in the world.
19:36Edged! There it is!
19:39South Africa have won.
19:41They've won this match, they've won the series
19:44and they go to the top of the world rankings.
19:47Some would argue that South Africa played...
19:49I'm 1,000% sure they played a very clever hand.
19:52They threw the charm offensive out on their players,
19:54chatting away in Afrikaans to him in the middle,
19:56making him feel friendly at home.
19:58Isn't winning more important than all this team nonsense about this?
20:03We've all got to be friends and mates.
20:05Win the game. Don't worry about being matey and friendly.
20:08It's short-term, long-term.
20:10Anyone can make an exception to a principle on a one-off occasion
20:15that might help you, but what damage does it cause long-term?
20:18I still laugh when they talk about the text messages I sent
20:21to South Africans calling Straus a...
20:23I wonder how many messages were floating around
20:25between Giles Clark, Andy Flower...
20:28Those guys are on the same side.
20:30You're texting the South African team about your captain.
20:34One is people on the same side, hopefully,
20:37trying to get the best out of Kevin Peterson.
20:40Hopefully. That was a good word, hopefully.
20:42The other is unacceptable.
20:46I made a mistake.
20:49I made a mistake. I've talked about it.
20:51I said to Straussy, I'm so sorry.
20:54So there's not much more that I can do on the situational or on the topic.
20:59We've got to move on. English cricket's got to move on.
21:03That doesn't mean that when you come up with a circumstance
21:07where the principles you stand for as a captain
21:10or that the team stands for are undermined in any way
21:14that you don't stand up for that.
21:16In fact, if you don't stand up for it then,
21:18why have those principles in the first place?
21:26I'd just like to take this opportunity to apologise to my teammates,
21:30the England supporters and the ECB for the situation
21:33that has arisen over the last couple of months.
21:35But thankfully, we have drawn a line under it
21:37and it's time to move forward.
21:39For all his brilliance, Peterson's England career
21:42had now taken a dramatic turn for the worse.
21:46His antics had driven a huge wedge between himself and the England team.
21:51And with an ashes down under fast approaching,
21:54something had to give.
21:57I know Kevin. He does hold a grudge.
21:59He was bad for the team at that point. We got rid of him.
22:02Who won from the Kevin Peterson debacle?
22:04Everybody lost.
22:07A lot of people are still very raw and wounded about the whole thing.