Over this year’s Big Bash League, I have grown in admiration for Kevin Pietersen. He has been more open, honest and less arrogant than we have ever seen before.
Instead of seeing the villain that causes havoc in the dressing room and is rude to media in airports, we have seen a man that is enjoying his cricket and enjoying the people he is playing with, while also being much more friendly to the media and to the Australian public.
In his tell all interview with Ricky Ponting and Mark Howard on Monday night’s Big Bash game between the Renegades and the Heat, KP opened up about the issues he had with past coach Andy Flower, saying he had poor man management skills.
KP also suggested in a roundabout sort of way that the players he had issues with were Graeme Swann, Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook and Matt Prior, all of whom are now gone from the ODI side, and only Cook remains in the Test side with any certainty around his position.
Pietersen also said that most of the players in the World Cup squad are guys he gets on well with, and says he gets phone calls from some of them asking for advice. Pietersen said that, more than anything, he wants to play cricket for England.
But would you give him another chance?
The reality is that Pietersen will never play for England again. In Monday’s Big Bash match David ‘Bumble’ Lloyd suggested that while KP is in the best XI “I have a better chance of playing for England than Kevin.”
And with the current English board this seems to be true. In December English national selector James Whitaker stated that “there is no way Kevin will play cricket for England again”, and ECB managing director Paul Downton said that “Kevin has burnt all his bridges.”
But if Kevin Pietersen had played for Australia, would he be in this same situation?. This is all hypothetical, but historically Australian Cricket has taken much more risks in terms of selecting players that were characters and could cause disruption in the dressing room.
Our greatest ever bowler, Shane Warne, isn’t too dissimilar to Kevin Pietersen. He too caused issues in the dressing room and didn’t get on with everyone, Warnie could have easily been cast aside by Cricket Australia for causing disruption in the dressing room.
The big difference between Warne and KP is how they were managed, Warne played under strong leaders and great man managers in Allan Border, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting. This strong leadership kept the team together and kept Warne in line.
KP mentioned in his interview that the best captain he played under was Michael Vaughan, who was a much stronger character than the likes of Strauss and Cook who skippered the side when his relationship with the English side worsened.
It seems that had Pietersen been in the Australian system he may still be playing international cricket right now.
But even though it seems impossible, should Kevin Pietersen be playing in the World Cup?
He is certainly in England’s best XI and has shown his class in the BBL to be in the top five runscorers.
Most of his old sparring partners in Swann, Cook, Strauss, Prior and Flower are gone, and it is a new look England side that would probably welcome Kevin back into the dressing room.
He remains a world-class player, and it is a pity that we won’t get to see one of the worlds premier batsmen in full flight in the biggest tournament in cricket.
Hopefully for cricket’s sake Kevin Pietersen plays international cricket again.
So put yourself in the English selectors’ shoes, would you pick Kevin Pietersen in the World Cup Squad?
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If people can lose their job, and clubs can face massive payouts, due to the behaviour of coaches, it will drastically change the way sporting teams in Australia will be run.
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