Collier: No bullying reports were made to ECB

Cricket365
October 29, 2014

Former ECB boss David Collier has denied claims of bullying made by former batsman Kevin Pietersen, saying the team would not have achieved what they had if the dressing room was that unhappy.

Pietersen claimed in his book that senior players like Matt Prior and the bowling attack were very harsh on other players if they made mistakes, and added that coach Andy Flower ‘ruled by fear’.

But Collier says he never heard of such reports, despite other past players confirming such stories, and said that England wouldn’t have reached number on in the Test rankings, and other achievements, if the mood was that sour.

Collier told the BBC: “No accusation of bullying was ever made to me. In any professional sport certain managers and leaders do have intensity from time to time.

“People that we respect as some of the greatest football managers have been known to be fairly robust in dressing rooms. Andy (Flower) is an intensely passionate man, he has the most superb integrity.

“There is no way we could have had the success over his long and successful period if there hadn’t been huge respect within that dressing room.

“In any professional sport players will get frustrated with each other – that’s a fact of life. I didn’t see that as in any way affecting the team atmosphere.

“That team were very, very close as a team and one of the frustrations at the moment for some of the senior players is they have created so much for English cricket over the past decade that they want that to be remembered.

“One of the reasons why is that they were all perfectionists, and if you want perfection you have to be hard on yourself.”