The Hindu : Sport : Pietersen slams century

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Thursday, Feb 03, 2005

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Pietersen slams century

By Ted Corbett

BLOEMFONTEIN, FEB. 2. Kevin Pietersen, more anxiously awaited by England than any batsman since Graeme Hick, turned on another fireworks display to guide the side to 270 as it took charge of the second One-Day International against South Africa.

Pietersen arrived with a reputation for limitless power and showed in Johannesburg three days ago that he was as unorthodox as it is possible to be but from the tip of his oversize helmet earpieces to the soles of his feet he is star quality. He will undoubtedly go far.

His century came off 91 balls with two 6s and five 4s, some hit with blockbuster force, and none with a delicate touch. His stroke to 98 consisted of two strides to the off-side and a bullet of a hit into the crowd at deep mid-wicket. That is not the shot of an ordinary batsman.

His triumph was a contrast with the torment of the South African captain. Graeme Smith's 24th birthday came on the eve of this international but he had little cause for celebration. Wherever he turned there was criticism of his leadership, phrases like "the knives are out" and attacks on the pathetic batting show by his men as England won the first, rain-hit, match in Johannesburg met his eyes. The happy man who began the Test series with a laugh and a joke was wilting before our eyes.

Smith was offered another illogical side by the selectors — Nicky Boje his supposed successor dropped on his own ground which is big enough to suit his left-arm spin — but he denied he was in conflict with the men who chose Adam Bacher, aged 32, after seven years, and now offered him an attack of six seam bowlers.

His critics seized on his decision to bowl first and when Marcus Trescothick set off as if he had just missed the last bus it looked as if England was going to run up a huge score. Trescothick and Geraint Jones, the new opening pair, put on 57 — 38 to Trescothick's bludgeon without moving his feet but using his hands beautifully — before Trescothick nudged a ball from Shaun Pollock on to his stumps.

Michael Vaughan dithered for 12 balls on nought, while Jones hit a half-hearted shot to mid-off and Andrew Strauss was given out to a leg glance that he may not have hit for all the noise as Mark Boucher dived for the catch.

Uncertain start

Pietersen, the "traitor" born in South Africa, arrived to rather fewer catcalls than he received in Johannesburg, but still looked a cat on hot bricks if ever there was one. I hear that his coaches at Nottingham reckon he is a bad starter to the extent that any bowler who can produce a straight ball in Pietersen's first over will certainly bowl him. But soon the runs began to come — although he might have been caught on 14 by Jacques Kallis at cover — and he hit one straight drive out of his own unorthodox book that had nothing to do with coaching. He brought up the 50 stand and overtook Vaughan with a cover hit; it would be wrong to dignify it as a cover drive.

At times Pietersen looks like a star of baseball or golf who has wandered into a game of cricket by mistake; highly talented but with no idea of technique. As his innings progressed he looked more and more like an international batsman. His first ball after Vaughan was run out for 42 — in a fourth-wicket stand of 80 — was a thoroughbred cover drive that accelerated away from two fielders.

He was dropped again by Ntini off Nel's bowling on 68 but he flipped a ball from Pollock into the crowd to bring up his highest one-day score and a new appreciation of the sheer power of his strokes.

The muscular Paul Collingwood joined in the fun against the monotonous relay of medium pace as the fifth-wicket stand reached fifty and the total 200 in the 42nd over. His cover drive off Pollock drove the rate above five for the first time since the first 10 overs and after 45 England was 229, on course for a competitive score.

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