Kevin Pietersen is a sod.
He’s broken every rule in the book, got up the noses of antagonists all over the planet and treated teammates abominably. Sure he can wield a cricket bat with a rare ferocity, but he’s a jerk.
This is a line I’ve peddled in recent years, but, damn, I’m going to have to sing a new tune.
I’ve come around to “KP”. I might – and it hurts admitting this – actually like him.
I haven’t changed. But Pietersen has.
He’s been on a slow-burn charm offensive in recent months, chiefly during the recent Ram Slam Twenty 20 where he put the Dolphins into orbit with some splendid batting. Bowlers might have dreaded him, but he couldn’t have been more accommodating to fans or his hosts.
He earned every cent, ending as top scorer with 364 runs, including a pair of centuries and another pair of 50s. No messing about, no sir.
This came on the back of his open support for the Springboks during the Rugby World Cup, his love-in with one-time enemy Graeme Smith and his involvement in the Cricket Sixes in Johannesburg.
He turned up at the Gary Player Invitational at Sun City last week and was a genial, popular guest. Inevitably he was in the news for tweeting his thoughts about the state of English cricket, but that said more about the absurd appetite of the UK media for a “KP” angle than it did about the content of his tweets. He’s never been backward in coming forward.
It wasn’t always so. Pietersen used to be the darling of the UK cricket establishment, bringing a flamboyance to the crease not unlike another maverick in the form of Ian Botham. His eccentricities were indulged because of what he brought to the game, but the Pietersen magic went sour after the publication of his book last year
He used it to settle old scores and irrevocably damaged his chances of being welcomed back into the England dressing room.
You could take the boy out of South Africa, but you couldn’t take South Africa out of the boy, as the “Blackberry incident” of 2012 proved. He was suspended for the third Test against South Africa after it emerged he had been sending messages to the Proteas, one of which claimed Andrew Strauss was behaving like a “doos”.
Proof of Pietersen’s volte face can be found in his curious friendship with Smith, who once called him an “absolute muppet” for comments made during England’s tour of SA 10 years ago.
Pietersen was hard to love. In his first book he said he was left out of the Natal side in 2000 because of quotas.
“The system is bullshit. It created an artificial team and that will never do anything to encourage the racial integration of cricket in South Africa,” he wrote.
The remarks got Smith’s back up and he was quoted as saying he had no time for his countryman.
“I’m patriotic about my country, and that’s why I don’t like Kevin Pietersen. The only reason that Kevin and I have never had a relationship is because he slated South Africa. It was his decision to leave and that’s fine, but why does he spend so much time slating our country?”
It’s fair to say the two have patched up their differences. In May, Smith was first in line hammering England for their refusal to select Strauss (who had just smashed 355 in a county game).
Smith’s tweet: “I see the head boy is making English cricket the laughing stock again! #StraussLogic”
Happily, Pietersen and Smith have both grown up and seem to have developed a genuine friendship.
In the wake of his Durban sojourn I even read a couple of pieces speculating about Pietersen playing for South Africa and showing England just what they are missing.
It’s a romantic, fanciful thought, but Pietersen is now strictly a gun-for-hire. Deep down he knows his England career is over.
It’s a pity because the new-look, mellower Pietersen is winning friends everywhere he goes.
The hard edge is gone. It’s hard not to like the new version, especially as he still bats like a demon. Good on him. – © Sunday Tribune