Former players criticising current ones is a dangerous game.

Alex Hartley’s cold-shouldering by some of the pettier England players for basically telling the truth reminds me of my relationship, or non-relationship, with Kevin Pietersen. We used to be good mates, talking about the game, the IPL, South Africa, our kids, favourite haunts in London. I invited him down to my cricket club for a demo, he invited me to his house for tea. I carried his man of the match award from the 2011/12 Adelaide Test (a full-size glass bat) back to the UK with me and delivered it to his home when the tour was over.

A year later, by which time KP had begun to behave a bit irrationally and was temporarily dropped by England for ‘textual impropriety”, England toured India. I was working for the Daily Telegraph and doing analysis for Star TV. Pietersen had a poor first Test in Ahmedabad. Towards the end of that match I wrote the following piece:

Three Indian batsmen with a combined total of 86 Test hundreds – Sunil Gavaskar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly – declared Alastair Cook’s unbeaten 168 as perhaps the finest innings ever played in India by an overseas batsman.

It had everything that Kevin Pietersen’s brief sojourn to the crease didn’t – exceptional skill, total composure and control, incredible stamina and undiluted responsibility. It was a superhuman effort by a man who exudes humility. He thinks of the team first and himself last.

Cook’s underlying secret is that he keeps things simple. He watches the ball like a hawk, plays precisely backwards or forwards according to the length, and restricts himself to three main scoring shots – the cut, the nudge to midwicket and the legside hit (either a pull or a sweep). He plays the ball not the man, completely banishing any personal feelings he may have about the bowler. He bats with heart but without emotion.

Pietersen is the opposite. He gets wound up about issues and tries to take his frustration out on the bowler. He allows personal feelings to influence his performance. His batting is always fuelled by emotion. He alternates between the wonderful and the woeful. It is this, of course, that makes him such compelling viewing.

He denies he has a weakness against left-arm spin, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He tries so hard to prove that he doesn’t have a problem that he finishes up reaffirming that he does. That was evidently clear from his first-innings effort. He spent much of it frenetically running up the pitch to India’s Pragyan Ohja, trying, and failing, to intimidate him with ungainly lunges at the ball which either ballooned up off his pad or scooted down the legside for byes. After a succession of near-misses, he was comprehensively bowled by Ohja, planting his front foot too early and then waving helplessly at the ball as it spun past him.

It was a limp end so he spent yesterday morning in the nets practising something more assertive – sweeps, flicks and drives against the spin. He was on a mission to dominate. On a turning track he does not believe he can survive against left-arm spin unless he takes it on.

There is no sense of logic or risk management here. No consideration that, with the ball spinning away, this is an extremely hard thing to do. It has become a fixation. Almost a phobia. And the more conspicuous it becomes, the more the opposition play on it, provoking him by putting on part-time left-armers like Yuvraj Singh, knowing he will have an even greater urge to obliterate.

Inevitably when he came into bat Ohja was bowling. He took guard and looked round the field. He didn’t have to look far. He was hemmed in by four close fielders. The rest were in a ring saving one. He blocked the first ball – it skimmed off a thick edge to gully. He advanced to the second, drove it firmly between the bowler and mid-on and embarked on his traditional off-the-mark dash. He made it safely.

Facing the last ball of the over, he skipped down again and this time drove straight to mid-off. There was no run. Having pulled Umesh Yadav for a single to long-leg, a few balls later he was now back on strike for the beginning of Ohja’s next over.

He looked fidgety, impatient. As Ohja delivered he made a big front foot movement up the pitch for a premeditated sweep. The ball pitched on leg stump but was quite full and he played over the top of it. He had also gone too far across and it stole under his leg, spun back and bowled him middle stump. It was an ugly end. With undue haste he put his bat under his arm – as if this is what he had expected would happen all along – and marched off. He had lasted six balls and was gone for two.

So now the facts. It was the 25th time he had been dismissed by a left-arm spinner since 2007 (out of a total of 102 dismissals). Some of these were authentic dismissals from top-line bowlers – Daniel Vettori has had him four times.

But some are just plain stupid, such as the time he was caught at long-on for 96 off South Africa’s Paul Harris. And in Asia since 2007 he has been out to left-arm spin 13 times – nine of those times bowled or lbw. For such a brilliant player that is barmy.

He should remind himself that his best innings for England have invariably come when he has taken some time to play himself in. And, most importantly, to play the ball not the bowler. Simple eh?

I accept that at times this piece may have made unpleasant reading if you were the subject. It’s a little blunt in places. But it is backed up by facts. Yet KP has cold-shouldered me ever since. It’s the price for speaking the truth I suppose, as Alex Hartley is also finding out. Some players and/or ex-colleagues are extraordinarily sensitive. They regard criticism from one of their own as a sort of betrayal.

I can only say in my case that KP confirmed our general impression that he had an issue with left arm spin by reaching out to his former IPL colleague Rahul Dravid for advice. He received a hugely helpful email by return and one Test match later reeled off the most extraordinary innings of 186 in Mumbai, taking the Indian spinners to the cleaners. It sparked an incredible England series comeback and was a privilege to witness. I wrote as much, though I have never had the opportunity to tell him in person. Hopefully similar good will come from Alex Hartley’s own candidness.

This article was originally published in The Cricverse and is republished here with permission.