The Hindu : Sport : England beaten, but the Pietersen show continues

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Feb 11, 2005

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Sport

England beaten, but the Pietersen show continues

By Ted Corbett

EAST LONDON, FEB. 10. As usual Kevin Pietersen is causing arguments. After the fifth one-day international of the seven-game series between South Africa and England there was uproar, typically between the old cricketers in the radio and TV commentary boxes and those fans who find his style of attacking batsmanship irresistible.

Pietersen scored a century off the last ball of the match by hitting his old friend Andre Nel, going back to the days when they were both youngsters aiming to play for South Africa, for a six into the crowd. It took him only 69 balls to complete his second hundred in a week in only his ninth one-day international. If he had been able to scrounge more of the bowling in the last ten overs he would almost certainly have won the match and levelled the series.

Outstanding

His record is already outstanding. In eight one-day innings for England, he has made 442 runs at an average of 147.33. His runs come at 99.55 for each 100 balls faced. In the words of the old song: Who can ask for anything more?

By any standards Wednesday's innings was breathtaking but when Pietersen went into a wild celebration after hitting that final six the old pros complained. His team lost, they said. It was inappropriate to let selfish pride take over. He should have thought of his team-mates. I have one word for such sentiments. Rubbish.

Cricket is an entertainment. It needs batsmen who can hit four sixes and seven fours in a century, who can break the England record by 15 balls, who are willing to go for broke in that spectacular way. "I love his calm and his cockiness," said Michael Vaughan, the England captain, after South Africa had won by seven runs. "When we get Freddie Flintoff back into our middle order there will be an explosion of powerful hitting."

The sour old professionals responded that we should wait for next summer when, they predict, Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie will reduce the impatient young stroke maker to his proper level; that of a junior midshipman who needs to learn the ropes before he climbs to the top of the rigging.

No fear

Pietersen might have been stumped at 46 in which case the game would have been won by South Africa by more than 100 runs and at the end of the following over, the 38th, England needed 120 to win. Pietersen showed no fear — he is 24, hardly a giddy teenager and he has known failure — which prompted the lower order batsmen like Vikram Solanki who made 19 before Pietersen ran him out, Ashley Giles (15) and Kabir Ali (20) to join the run chase.

With one over left, England needed 23. Pietersen hit two and four, he and Darren Gough both hit singles leaving England 13 short. The game was lost and there was only one course of action open to Pietersen. He pulled a decent ball from Nel into the crowd at wide mid-on and even those South Africans who call him a traitor — partly from conviction, partly from jealousy — began to hope they might see more of this violent young batsman.

Earlier Graeme Smith, the South African captain, had made his second century in successive games, Jacques Kallis hit 20 off Kabir Ali's first over to take all the pressure off the rest of the batsmen and Justin Kemp slugged his way to 80 — four fours and seven sixes — off 50 balls before he was bowled by Gough's best yorker. By then he had proved that anything Pietersen could do he could do as well. He won the man of the match award; joyous Pietersen distressed the experts. I will never understand why.

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