An honest mistake?

Bumble fears 'honest' Kevin Pietersen could face a backlash after admitting he wants to go home.

Bumble blogs from sunny Barbados

It was quite sad to hear Kevin Pietersen saying that he's "at the end of his tether" and wants to go home. I admire his honesty and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, but it will be quite alarming for the management that he's finding things so difficult. Sport is full of ups and downs and you have to find ways to cope with it. Maybe he should have a chat with Steve Harmison who has publically spoken about his homesickness on previous tours. But, as Harmison will tell you, when you do speak honestly like that then there's a tendency for people to come down on you like a tonne of bricks. He's given an honest answer to an honest question and he could end up with people on his back because of it. Clearly he hasn't been at his best on this tour and when you read those comments you can understand why. Hopefully he will pick up again in the UK when he gets back to his family. Life and cricket is full of ups and downs and he's got to try to find a way to draw a line under it. There will be a time for reflection and he needs to dust himself down and get on with it. I thought he would adapt very quickly to losing the captaincy, but form this interview it seems there are lingering problems.

Time for tee

Pietersen may not be too happy, but I am enjoying myself here in Barbados. It's a very relaxing place full of nice people and we're staying in an all-inclusive hotel, so I've been eating far too much food. I managed to play some golf up at Royal Westmoreland (my favourite golf course in the world) which is owned by a lovely northern bloke called John Morphett. I was invited to play with a few notables such as Andy Gray, Jamie Redknapp, Alan Hansen, Andy Cole, Pat Jennings, Kenny Dalglish and David O'Leary and we had a really good day. I don't know who won but it certainly wasn't me. I was playing with Nasser and I had an absolute shocker.

Freddie ready

Looking forward and Andrew Flintoff is back in the England side, but I must say the management of his injury has been terrible. He should never have been allowed to bowl in the last Test match. It turned a five-day injury into a five-week injury. He should have been pulled out of the attack, but instead they bowled him and bowled him until he broke down. The team will be better for his return, but don't expect too much from him straight away. He's had five weeks out and has to start all over again. Common nsense needs to be applied in the future. As with any injury, there's no point making him play through it because you'll only make it worse.

Windies wallies

I am baffled about the decision of the West Indies players to cover up their shirt sponsors' logo for the third ODI, as part of their dispute with the West Indies cricket board. Digicel are the only sponsors of West Indies cricket and will not be happy about this at all, especially because the players have admitted they are not in dispute with Digicel. Most probably, Digicel will say they've had enough and will pull out of the deal - so effectively the players are throwing away the only definitive revenue that they can get. The players say they want 30 per cent of all revenue, but if their main sponsors pull out then the silly sods will get 30 per cent of naff all...

Bumble answers your questions...

Send your questions to Bumble by filling in the feedback form below. Or you can mail them in by e-mailing skysportsclub@bskyb.com THE NUMBERS GAME
Hi David. After the bizarre end to the first ODI between England and West Indies I've been the reading the comments about John Dyson reading the Duckworth-Lewis calculations incorrectly. However the question I have is this: in the modern era, why is the Duckworth Lewis not on each team's laptop? Why are they looking at a piece of paper? Surely it would be easy enough to have a simple programme where you type in balls bowled and current scores and then it tell you who has won. Or is there a law which states that teams can only have a print-out to refer to? I'd appreciate your thoughts on this and keep up the great work! Cheers, Chris, Auckland. BUMBLE SAYS: The whole situation was laughable, but a laptop wouldn't have helped. There was no calculation for John Dyson to do; the appropriate read-out was printed out for him by the officials. He simply didn't read it properly. Dyson kept saying he was in charge, but I can't understand why the captain was sat there doing nothing or why the two batsmen didn't have a sheet of paper out in the middle. Andrew Strauss had the sheet in his pocket and knew almost immediately that England had won, but the West Indies were very amateurish. But never mind that almighty cock-up, I want to know why the West Indies were not trying to play the game? It was a nonsense and in the end they got what they deserved.