Sacking Kevin Pieterson : Is it justified?

One of the modern great’s international career came to a crashing end today morning, after English Cricket Board sacked Kevin Pieterson.

Kevin Pieterson was informed that he will not be the part of the coming tour of West Indies and ICC World T20 in Bangladesh. This decision was "unanimously" taken by the Managing director of the ECB, along with the selection committee, citing the reason that the team needs to start the rebuilding process after the horror show down under, wherein the team won just a single match out of thirteen.

Now the question remains that does this actually justify the concerns of ECB? Or is Kevin Pieterson being made a scrapegoat?

For starters, Kevin was the highest run scorer for England in the 5-0 drubbing it received. But he faced heavy criticism for the manner he was dismissed throughout the entire series. This includes a mistimed hook shot, couple of catches at the boundary, and moreover, repeatedly falling to Peter Siddle in the first half of the Ashes, who has dismissed Pieterson for more than 10 times.

Now, being fair on Pieterson’s part, none of the English batsmen performed well. Yes, Pieterson played harsh, especially in some crunch situations. But most of the dismissals were proper planned ones, rather than what he gave away. The wild slash he made in Melbourne was a self-less act, rather than a reckless shot as viewed by many of the former English players. Yes, he was tricked more than once into playing that on-side dab, but does that mean he was irresponsible?

If we apply the same logic, Alastair Cook should have been punished for being "irresponsible" against the short deliveries of Mitchell Johnson. Ian Bell, their hero in the last Ashes, played poorly in the entire test series, to say the least. Infact, the whole team was irresponsible, as a matter of fact. But why single-out Pieterson in particular?

Pieterson has always been in the wrong side of a controversy, whenever something involved him in particular. Be it the message-gate, wherein he was penalised by exclusion from the team for sending defamatory messages to the opposition teammates. And more-recently, it has been the fallout with former England coach Andy Flower which has gained much limelight. Rumours say that neither of them wanted to work with each other.

Apparently, the ECB had it enough. Going by performance, I do not feel he was the most irresponsible. Atleast Ian Bell has been worse than him, and many more if we look at it closer. But coming back to the point, we might never get to know the real reason as to why he was "unanimously" sacked. Was it his eccentric behavior? Was his irresponsibility as a senior batsman? No matter what it was, Kevin Pieterson is proud of his career, and the Cricket crowd will remember him as one of the most flamboyant cricketer of his generation, and one of the greatest batsman to play for England.