Enigma. I give you Kevin Pietersen of Bletchley Park.
Code breaker, law breaker, rule breaker extraordinaire.
The Poms just didn’t know what they were letting themselves in for when he got the green light to play for England.
33 years of trouble is how many view him.
But KP is Shane Warne in a taller body – contrarian, recidivist, anti-establishment, anti-coach, anti-anything they want really!
KP is prone to getting his boots stuck in his mouth. Able to leap all obstacles in a single bound. Able to swat bouncers into the crowd using his great height. Able to deflate an innings like very few in history.
Lax in the field at times, taker of magnificent catches, scoring runs at rates of knots that even Enigma could not compute.
Alan Turon, Enigma’s main mathematician and computing genius, may well have been pardoned for his convictions on “sexual perversion” recently, but KP might have his record read out loud as an example of inconsistency for many cricketing years to come.
100 Tests, average of 47, strike rate 62%, 177 innings, 10 Test wickets with his off spin, a supreme one day cricketer, but lately the wheels have been rickety on the old Enigma computer that runs in KP’s head.
There was that loud and distasteful spat with Andrew Strauss and recovering from a serious knee issue to play a part in the two Ashes series – not a big part I must say!
Jon Trott and Graeme Swann may have disappeared but KP has put himself front and centre by saying he will play on.
Andy Flower couldn’t stand for one of his remaining main men to walk the plank on this tour, or immediately after it.
What can be said about KP’s nine year reign in English cricket is that it has been memorable.
At times he looked positively like a rabbit in the headlights. At times he looked like England’s great white hope.
A taker of stunning catches, rubber-band style throwing action that only endeared him to old timers, off spinners that turn a mile, clouter of some of the longer balls hit in all the countries of the Commonwealth and target of every Australian bowler that lived and played during his Ashes career.
I still remember Warney throwing a rocket back at him after KP has smashed a leggie into dear old Warney’s leg somewhere like Adelaide during a double ton or some such.
Depositing the best spinners from all countries the compulsory 15 rows back. Taking hits on the helmet, giving the head a cursory shake, then back to the action.
Talking to crowds, being lambasted as having ‘his head up his fundament’.
KP and Rhinoceros hide have a lot in common.
Is this the very last we will see of KP? Maybe not.
He owes English cricket is my take. Anyone with his talent should never throw his wicket away.
When he has too infrequently applied himself on a losing team, he has scored 50s at snails paces, stuck to his task with great courage and set an example for those who followed.
When he was on a winning team at the top of his game, he could thrash like no one else. When it suited him, he would just up and throw it away – whether his team was in trouble or coasting to a 500 run total.
When he was captain of England he was woefully inept at managing people.
When he returned to the team he back-stabbed Strauss as fast as he could slash.
KP was not a loyalist. He was a roundhead, given to bouts of jealousy, prone to rants on Twitter, making love with his bat in front of millions of people.
When I think of KP I will think of the great innings, sure, but I will think of the times when a 50 or a hundred or a whole Test match was there for him to pick off the cherry tree and he would spurn it like it was prune juice.
I will shake my head and say ‘This guy could have been a 60 runs per innings man in Tests’ and I will hope his son and wife see more of him than we did in recent innings in his Test career.
But, grudgingly, I have to say ‘It was always a blast when you were around KP. Love to know what you’ll do after cricket.’
Cheers.
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