Kevin Pietersen

Was Kevin Pietersen out caught at leg slip for 49?

If you answered ‘yes’ to that question, you’re wrong. Kevin Pietersen was not out on 202 when England declared.

The consensus seems to be that Pietersen probably should have been given out when he tucked the ball down to Rahul Dravid, but we care more about what happened after that. He wasn’t given out and India had another 196 opportunities to dismiss him, but didn’t.

As many of you know, we never really accepted that Kevin Pietersen was in some dire run of form, but he still surprised us a bit with this innings. To go all Tour de France for the third time this week, he drifted along in the slipstream of Bell and Prior, conserving his energy in the mountainous morning and evening sessions. Then, when the England peloton approached the flat of an evening session featuring three fully-knackered frontline bowlers, he burst out and sprinted like Mark bloody Cavendish.

On Sky, they called Matt Prior the catalyst, which may well be true, but it’s worth keeping things in perspective. Kevin Pietersen scored three times as many runs as Prior.

As for England’s declaration, 474 really doesn’t seem like that many runs to us. We’d have been tempted to try and inflict some more wear and tear on the immense Praveen Kumar being as we’re at the start of an overly rapid four-Test series, but maybe we’re going too far with the long range planning with that. After all, the guy who wins the Tour de France will have done so by picking the right times to attack.

Pietersen, Strauss and recent Test innings

Kevin Pietersen’s out of form. Andrew Strauss has developed a problem against left-arm pace. Those were the stories at the start of yesterday’s play and the evidence came in the form of their recent Test records.

When play did occur, Pietersen looked amazing, but he made the grave error of failing to reach three figures. Never mind that his innings was about ten times as good as Alastair Cook’s second innings hundred at Lord’s, it wasn’t a hundred, so in a few weeks’ time it will be all but forgotten. “He’s only hit one Test hundred since March 2009,” they’ll say, even though that hundred was 227 in an Ashes Test and there was also a 99 in that period.

Andrew Strauss was out to a left-armer again. Never mind that it was one who he faced while scoring a hundred for Middlesex a few weeks ago, this was in a Test – this counted.

There’s truth in that, of course, but his form isn’t really so bad. He was England’s best one-day batsman last summer and played one hell of an innings against India in the World Cup. He didn’t get out to a left-arm pace bowler then, did he?

Oh, wait, he did.

Dropping Kevin Pietersen from the England Test team

We’re not a fan of this idea.

You might say that we’re too easily pleased; that we’d support any batsman who scored thousands of runs for England with unparalleled panache. But you’d be wrong.

There’s another thing. We once made Kevin Pietersen say ‘pie’.

You can’t buy an experience like that. Or maybe you can, but it wouldn’t feel so special.

There’s also the fact that five Test innings ago, the guy hit his highest score and did so in an Ashes Test. It’s not like he doesn’t know where his next run’s coming from.

He should bat at five though. That theory that he should aspire to bat at three betrays Britain’s wrong-headed belief that we should all seek out responsibility, as if responsibility is somehow a good thing.

Responsibility is not a good thing.

Kevin Pietersen as an opener in one-day cricket?

Yeah? Maybe? Dunno really.

England have long known that one-day openers are better off being twat-it-around batsmen. They haven’t fully embraced this though. They tend to pick their second or third best twat-it-around batsman for the job. Preferably the wicketkeeper.

Why not do the job properly? If you want a twat-it-around meister opening the batting, pick your best one. Plonk Kevin Pietersen there and see what his girder arms and oddly twisty torso can do.

We once suggested that Andrew Flintoff should open the batting in one-dayers. Some of our reasons for saying that are equally applicable to the use of Pietersen.

We’re not saying they’re particularly good reasons. We’re more remarking that they were once said and could, at a push, make a case for something happening that is happening anyway no matter what our thoughts on the matter might be.

What use is a flat track bully?

The term ‘flat track bully’ isn’t so popular these days. It’s because it’s no longer indicative of a weakness.

A batsman who makes the most of flat pitches, bullying bowlers into submission, is basically what you want in Test cricket where 19 pitches out of 20 are basically pretty lifeless for the first half of the match (and often beyond that). Far better to have someone who is guaranteed to cash in when the going’s good than a player who can negotiate the moving ball who’s prone to lapses in concentration.

Before the series, we predicted that the batsmen England were most worried about, Cook and Pietersen, would actually be more influential than others. You wouldn’t fancy either of them when the ball’s swinging, but when it’s not, well, they’re right up there. Don’t be fooled by Cook’s more sedentary scoring – these two batsmen are creatures of their time.

When the Aussies bowl at Cook, there might as well be an asteroid parked in front of the stumps for all that he looks like getting out at the minute. Pietersen’s different. He swings across the line and plays the ball in the air, but if the bounce is true, he can just trust his eye and get on with it.

Australia’s era of dominance roughly coincided with a modern age of flat Aussie-style pitches worldwide. We’re not by any means suggesting that this was the reason for their success, but it’s worthy of debate whether that contributed at all.

Dr Pietersen, he talks with the animals, talks with the animals…

Like most people, we’ve always assumed that Kevin Pietersen was a trained zoologist. That was proven this week when he offered this insight into the workings of the animal kingdom when talking about the Australian cricket team:

“They’re a wounded animal at the moment and you know what happens when animals get wounded – they turn into fearsome predators.”

Yep, that’s what happens when a rabbit treads on a thorn: it metamorphosises into a shark.

Cricket in the southern hemisphere

We understand why Kevin Pietersen is going to play a couple of matches for Kwa-Zulu Natal, but what the hell is he blathering about?

“These two matches would enable me to work on my game against the Kookaburra ball in southern hemisphere conditions, which is the ideal preparation for Australia.”

What are southern hemisphere conditions? That’s half the frigging planet you’re talking about, KP.

If experiencing ’southern hemisphere conditions’ is your priority, why do you need a club at all?

Why doesn’t he just get a bowling machine and a bag of Kookaburras and go to Angola, Paraguay or Antarctica?

Kevin Pietersen’s tough life

Kevin Pietersen is leaving Hampshire.

“Geographically, it just doesn’t work – I live in Chelsea.”

Our commute isn’t that bad, but unlike Pietersen we have to do it far more than once every two years.

Kevin Pietersen’s weakness against left-arm spin

Kevin Pietersen doesn’t have a weakness against left-arm spin. Not directly anyway. Kevin Pietersen’s weakness is that sometimes he thinks he could travel to the moon without a vehicle or oxygen.

All players have a confidence range. Sometimes they’re up, sometimes they’re down, but the extremes aren’t the same for all players.

For example, you want Andrew Strauss to be as confident as possible, because when he’s nervy, he gets out. Kevin Pietersen’s optimum level of confidence is in the mid to low end of his range. Kevin Pietersen is at his most vulnerable when he’s on 185 and he’s just switch-hit a six or when a left-arm spinner who doesn’t turn it much comes on to bowl.

When faced with Paul Harris, Ryan Hinds or Yuvraj Singh, KP assumes that he’ll middle every ball. As a consequence, he doesn’t consider playing across the line at a ball delivered straight at the stumps is in any way dangerous.

At our most confident, we feel like there’s a healthy chance that we won’t walk into a door frame. We can never aim much higher than that.

Kevin Pietersen booed in South Africa

If you’re relatively new to cricket, you might think Kevin Pietersen came to prominence because of a shit haircut and an Ashes-winning hundred. You’d be wrong and not just because cricket series are won by bowlers and not by batsmen ensuring a draw in the final Test of a series.

No, Kevin Pietersen came to prominence because some of his first international matches were in a one-day series against the country of his birth and they booed his arse off. These weren’t coy, knowing, silent boos, but big, full-on, red-blooded-South-African-man boos. These were boos that could skin a gazelle and dry its flesh into sticks of dried salted meat. Duncan Fletcher called the crowd reaction ‘abnormal’.

Pietersen promptly hit 22 not out, 108 not out, 33, 75, 100 not out and 116. That last innings had an alarming change of gear. After hitting 34 off 73 balls up to the 35th over, Pietersen then hit 82 off the next 37. England still lost. Obviously.

But as he left the field, the South African crowd actually gave him a standing ovation. If you can go into that situation and not just endure it but win those people over, that’s quite something.

Asked about the booing this week, KP said it was ‘nothing personal’ which is the most inaccurate comment ever made. It is 100 percent personal. That is actually the only reason behind it.