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If England lose, could Kevin Pietersen be recalled?

Kevin Pietersen was a controversial character, but a great cricketer. (AFP PHOTO/ANDREW YATES.)
Expert
28th July, 2015
20

There’s no argument Kevin Pietersen should be in the England line-up tonight at Edgbaston on ability alone, shoring up a brittle batting order.

Despite his 35 summers he’s still one of the most dangerous batsman to ever strap on pads, yet he’s not been selected and purely for reasons other than cricket.

No sportsman is non-manageable, but Pietersen has been cemented in that role, and England’s cricket is the poorer for it.

I’ll bet Australian Trevor Bayliss, the new England coach, would relish having Pietersen in his team.

Sure, he’s a larrikin and a right royal pain in the butt at times, but that wouldn’t deter Bayliss from getting the most out of his talent.

Pietersen’s career stats of 104 Tests, 8181 runs at 47.28 with 23 Test tons and 35 half-centuries makes him as the fifth most successful England batsman in history. He is behind current captain Alastair Cook’s 9139 runs at 46.62, Graham Gooch’s 8900 at 42.58, Alec Stewart’s 8463 at 39.54 and David Gower’s 8231 at 44.25.

But being explosive with the bat doesn’t mix with being explosive on Twitter and other off-field activities, as Pietersen found out when he was dropped from the England side after the Ashes Test at the SCG in 2014.

He had his papers marked “never to play again” by Andrew Strauss when he was appointed England’s new director of cricket earlier in the year.

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It hasn’t really been nailed why Strauss took such a draconian stance towards the obvious and proven game-breaker.

There have been various rumours floating around that he gave the then-captain Strauss and Cook a hard time, as he did with previous coaches Andy Flower and Peter Moores.

But he’s given plenty of people a hard time, especially opponents.

Hard to control undoubted talent must be harnessed as the Wallabies have found with the ‘Four Amigos’: Matt Giteau, Kurtley Beale, James O’Connor and Quade Cooper.

All four have caused the ARU plenty of grief over the years, but in Michael Cheika there’s a no-nonsense coach who has the quartet in his Rugby Championship squad and very likely the squad for the Rugby World Cup.

It will be interesting to see how Cheika deals with Cooper’s expletive-ridden Twitter outburst after the Pumas game. Cooper has apologised, it should never have happened, but it’s the first time he’s broken ranks for two years.

Bayliss would do a Cheika with Pietersen, but as he’s the new boy on the block he’s hardly likely to rattle the Strauss tree so early on his watch.

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But if England lose at Edgbaston to go 2-1 down, Bayliss may well be sitting across Strauss’ desk for a rethink.

A batting order with the in-form Cook and Joe Root, plus Ian Bell overdue for runs with just one 60 in his last 12 Test digs, linked with the dangerous Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali feeding off Pietersen could be an Ashes-changing combination.

Whether Andrew Strauss has the bottle to change his position is the big question.

The fate of the Ashes may well depend on it.

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