Kevin Pietersen’s weakness against left-arm spin

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Kevin Pietersen falls short of lunar successKevin 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.

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

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8 comments

  1. I was always very confident that whenever I broke wind, I would not follow through.

    Then, one day, that confidence was shattered forever.

  2. We have an eight year old boy staying with us for Crimbo, he says he doesn’t like Paul Harris.
    Reason? Paul Harris looks like KP with blond hair.

    There’s just something about Mr Pietersen that rubs most people up the wrong way, if he wasn’t so darn talented someone would have found a way to section him, just to keep him away from the rest of us.

  3. That day wasn’t day 5 of the Centurion Test by any chance was it?

    Or day 5 of the Cardiff job come to that?

  4. No Ged. It was like any good match report. It had very little to do with cricket. Got up, went downstairs, turned on Sky Sports News and as I was standing looking at the headlines ready to go into the kitchen to make a cup of tea, it just happened.

  5. I tell you, I read that comment of Mr Dans and it went straight over my head at first. At first. Urghhh.

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