So, Pieterson is coming home for the birth of his first baby. I recall Len Coldwell going on an Ashes tour when his wife was expecting twins!! He felt he had to go because his tour fee-£4000-(get that Pietersen) would enable him to buy a house.
If KP can return for an impending birth, then I suggest our troops serving overseas and facing real action, start putting compassionate leave requests in.

I totally agree Carolian. They said on TV that this is part of the current 'contracts' the players have. Of course I understand how important this is to a family but the whole point of being selected for your country is partly an honour and mostly a commitment to your country which entails some personal sacrifices. To make matters worse, England actually look good at the moment and have some real momentum going. KP might make it back for the semis but allowing him to go is a massive gamble by England.

Losing out on your family life and living out of a suitcase is supposed to be the major drawback of being a professional sportsman.

Its quite simple for me. You either accept the invitation to play in the tournament/tour or not. If you do accept you are available for all games within the tournament/tour. I think all this having time off to be at the birth was first started by Vaughan as captain and then both Strauss and Prior (I think) have had time off from England duty to be at the birth of their child in recent times. Would be interesting if a fringe player took the decision to attend the birth of a child? Would it effect their international career?

Just wait til they start demanding paternity leave!! This by law has to mirror maternity leave. Quite how that stands in cricket I do not know.

I FULLY support KP on this. Family comes first. England management team knew his situation before this tournament started.
Maybe they are trying to induce Mrs KP, so that he can get back to the rest of the tournament. All fathers would like to be at the birth of their child, especially their first born.
Hope it all goes well for KP and Jess.

C'mon England lets beat the Kiwis and not miss him too much anyhow !

Wasn't it KP's wife sat on Stanford's lap (Nixon's) or something happened anyway ? Not sure if that's relevant to this thread or not and I'm not making any suggestions but there might be understandable concern from some England players to rush back to 'make sure'.

I think that was Matt Prior's partner who was having a good time on Stanford's lap. I remember reading somewhere he looked up at the big screen whilst playing and was amazed to see her with Stanford and Stanford with a big smile across his face!

Baby boy for Mr and Mrs KP

Congrats KP. Get back for the semi final now.England have now qualified thanks to the Pakistan win over the Boks

All parties are equally loathsome to me but I did find this pretty amusing.

http://www.cricinfo.com/england/content/current/story/468146.html

Edit: I don't mind Andy Flower and it would be grossly unfair to lumber him in with Bransgrove, Pietersen and the ECB.

Figjam in a jam?

this man has a certain arogance about him in my opinion. He will continue to do whatever he wants me thinks.

there are rarely people that I instantly dislike, but this chap is up there on the list! (thats a bad admission on my part... I feel less of myself for admitting that!) :s

Gets a slating in the Times today regarding his loss of self confidence "The Ego has landed" was the heading. Just a shame that you can't view the Times online now without paying.