Our response to Alviro Petersen accusing The Reverse Sweep of lying on Twitter

 
It's been a bit of a strange weekend.

Quite inexplicably, the Reverse Sweep has been involved in a bit of a spat on Twitter with new Glamorgan captain Alviro Petersen.

It all started on Friday night when we saw some comments Petersen had made on Twitter. At the time we thought he had made these in the wake of Glamorgan's defeat at Chelmsford where Essex chased down 360 to win by six wickets. We've since found out that Petersen actually posted his Tweets at the close of the second day's play on April 27th.

This is what he said:

"I'm playing the worst cricket of my career, people always upset with me, responsibility, some like it when I fail. Can't get worse."

"I will never quit though, and will only take those with me who support me. Its (sic) a lonely place when things aren't going well."

In our view, by posting these comments on a public social networking site like Twitter, Petersen left himself open to comment from his near 9,000 followers or anyone else who saw his Tweets for that matter. Whether those comments were supportive, indifferent or critical; or even mildly critical in our case.

We retweeted Petersen's comments and added "Just what Glamorgan needs. A sensitive captain."

We were surprised to receive a response from Petersen that told us in no uncertain terms "its (sic) called honesty David", before asking rather strangely "Nice to hear from you David. You've been hiding or what?"

The Reverse Sweep is a cricket blog and here was a cricketer responding to one of our Tweets. Clearly, we were going to write a post about this.

Our subsequent post "Alviro Petersen gets too honest on Twitter" wasn't the best post we've ever written, but neither was it our worst.

Whilst it was mildly critical of Petersen for going public with what we construed as problems in the Glamorgan dressing room - and how else were we supposed to take comments such as "some like it when I fail" and that Petersen "will only take those with me who support me" - it was hardly damning. Indeed, in some sense we admired his candour and the article was also supportive of Petersen and clearly expressed a hope that he unifies the dressing room and takes the county forward.

In any case, we weren't the only ones to pick up on the story - the BBC ran an article also referring to Petersen's outpourings on Twitter and Short Midwicket has written an excellent post about Petersen's subsequent rants against this site.

Having not looked at Twitter yesterday we were surprised and mildly amused this morning to see that Petersen had continued to Tweet about our post:

"Just had a look at the article in the reverse sweep. Now that guy David Green would be the sly ones (sic) I'm talking about."

"David Green, if you have your facts right, then write mate. Shit journalism. Its (sic) the reverse sweep!"

"David Green, @TheReverseSweep, now that is trying to sell whatever. This guy must get his facts right"

Apart from kindly referring to us as a journalist, this is a man who would seem to see enemies at every turn.  (Read @AlviroPetersen for the full lowdown).

As we've said our article was fairly mild in its criticism and we are surprised that Petersen even cares what a pretty obscure cricket blog has said - but hey, just like us he is entitled to his own opinion. Even if he is wrong.

Indeed, we don't really care what Petersen thinks about us or this site, but we do mind when he accuses us of being liars. 

We've not told any lies about Petersen. We have merely opined that his comments would have been best kept behind closed doors and surmised about what Petersen could have meant when he said "some like it when I fail". As we said these are Petersen's words, not ours and certainly not lies.  

Nevertheless. we are not going to descend into name calling, even if we will offer some final thoughts.

One, by going public on Twitter with comments that could easily be construed as alluding to problems in the Glamorgan dressing room, Petersen left himself open to comment and to criticism.

Two, can anyone imagine an experienced captain like Andrew Strauss, MS Dhoni or Petersen's own international skipper Graeme Smith going public with comments such as these? Put it this way, Mike Brearley is unlikely to be adding a new chapter to his "The Art of Captaincy" opus as a consequence.

Three, our original response to his comments suggesting that Petersen may be over-sensitive (and perhaps too over-sensitive to be a leader of men) seem to be pretty close to the mark.

And finally, are Petersen's subsequent personal comments about this site on Twitter really the sort of behaviour and decorom that one would expect from a County Cricket captain?

On that note, it is probably best to consign this sorry affair to the wastepaper basket of history.

Where next?

Alviro Petersen gets too honest on Twitter

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Comments

[Sid]

That is brilliant. Nothing better than some free publicity from a cricketer. I've been trying to get Graeme Swann to get pissed at me for a couple of years but he's too damn good!

[Mspr1nt]

Oi, things getting a bit heated here. Just one comment...

"Apart from having a fairly poor grasp of the English language"

English is not his first language :)

I understand your gripes, but I think Petersen is still learning. I met him last year at the Cricket SA Annual launch and, I must say, in person he is one of the most gentle and introverted players I've ever come into contact with, so I'm quite surprised by this little tirade.

You've obviously gotten underneath his skin, so there might have been some truth to his frustrations and perhaps he thought he was, like you said, just being honest.

Let's hope this helps him for the better, in all aspects.

[Gal]

"Apart from having a fairly poor grasp of the English language and for kindly referring to us as a journalist"

"Our subsequent post "Alviro Petersen gets too honest on Twitter" wasn't the best post we've ever written, but neither was it our WORSE"

Oh dear...

[The Reverse Sweep]

Ant, thanks for tip about English not being his first language - I should have realised that and have now deleted it.

It sounds like AP could be under a bit of pressure in Wales - to be fair he walked into a bit of a firestorm after what happened there over the winter - none of which was his fault.

It's a shame in a lot of ways. As his honesty on Twitter was refreshing - if a little too candid perhaps. And he obviously cares too otherwise he wouldn't be too worried about what an insignificant blog like this thinks.

Hopefully, he'll bang a double hundred in the next match and never look back.

Not sure he's captaincy material though, even if I'd gladly be proved wrong.

[mspr1nt]

"Hopefully, he'll bang a double hundred in the next match and never look back."

I hope so too!

As for the captaincy gig, not sure if he is right for that role either, but let's hope that being thrown into the deep-end helps him learn like Biff did with SA all those years back (or is that stretching it a bit too far?)

Either way, I hope this whole experience helps him regain his form that will see hi return to the South African fold.

[Michael Counsell]

Well the double century did come...

[The Reverse Sweep]

That he did Michael and a brilliant innings it was too if the commentary of Henry Blofeld is to be believed. AP seems to be doing well at Glamorgan and they could go top of D2 if they beat Surrey and Northants fail to win against Leics.