Kevin Pietersen never wanted to be like anyone else. He was always his own man. It is why he felt aggrieved at the quota system in his homeland of South Africa and duly fled to greener pastures.
It is why his Nottinghamshire captain threw Pietersen’s kitbag over the dressing room balcony in 2003, after voicing opinions nobody else dared to say.
It is why he sent texts to South African opponents about how to bowl to his teammates, and called his captain, Andrew Strauss, an idiot in Afrikaans.
But the best are often the most divisive. Don Bradman wasn’t very well liked, neither was Geoffrey Boycott. Stretching to other sports, Michael Jordan wasn’t adored inside the dressing room, and John McEnroe rolled to the beat of his own, very loud drum.
But Pietersen thrives it’s ‘KP versus the world’. Think of the 149 at Headingly after ‘textgate’. Think of his 186 in Mumbai in 2012 on a raging turner soon after his regeneration, when his teammates and public’s eyes were focused squarely on him. Think too, the 158 in the Ashes decider of ’05, when he flat batted a 150kmph Brett Lee with utter disdain.
His resilient individualism and epic self-belief acted as a giant score he had to settle with the world.
You can now add the 355* for Surrey this week, when the olive branch of an English return was dangled by a refreshed board. Or so he thought.
Pietersen was told by incoming chairman Colin Graves, to find a county and make runs. How does 335 sound, Colin?
Pieteren’s meeting with Strauss and ECB director Tom Harrison delivered him the dreaded news. No more England. No more KP.
KP was misled. He was annoying, dropped, recalled, sacked, a hopeful and now, nothing. The ECB has sold him down the river, apparently due to a lack of trust.
But as the man himself noted in his newspaper column, is it him or the ECB with the trust issues? The English public has fallen out of love with their cricket team. A team seemingly stuck in the past when others move forward. A Test team which is just OK, and two limited overs sides that can be knocked over by the minnows. And they are without a coach; a rudderless, misguided ship.
And now, the great white hope, the chance to re-enchant a disillusioned public, and still in many eyes the nation’s best player even at 34, is no more. All because he’s too hard to manage.
Surely, surely, you can find a way to accommodate 13,000 international runs.
At least give it a chance.
Maybe having an even more polarising figure in Piers Morgan as your verbal mouthpiece isn’t the best way to win back trust, but this is Kevin Pietersen. High maintenance, yes, but utterly, utterly brilliant at what he does – playing cricket. And being denied that chance one last time is quite possibly the biggest issue of them all.
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While a premature retirement isn’t the solution, he or England want, he may be forced into it if he can’t maintain a long run of matches.
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