Fans of England cricket will miss Kevin Pietersen's runs. But they won't miss him
Bad week: Kevin Pietersen leaves the pitch after being bowled against Hampshire Royals at the Ageas Bowl
So that is it for Kevin Pietersen. No going back on this one, I fear.
If allegations that he passed on tactical advice to England's opponents South Africa are true, then it’s curtains.
Judging by the reaction of the crowd to his golden duck at Hampshire yesterday, which was rapturous applause, few tears will be shed over his banishment, other than by a hatful of z-list celebrities and the management team who have so enriched him these past seven years.
The great irony of course is that Kevin Pietersen should be the most popular cricketer in England.
Swashbuckling, charismatic and handsome, he is probably the only England player who would comfortably walk in to most people’s World XI.
However dire the predicament, English fans could always take hope in the ‘KP factor’, his ability to quickly take games away from bowling sides with his devastating repertoire of shots. His Ashes-saving innings of 158 at the Oval in 2005 remains the blueprint for his awesome attacking strokeplay.
But fans have never taken Pietersen to their hearts. He is reviled more than revered.
His grounds for abandoning his home country of South Africa – he said he wanted to escape sport’s racial quotas - always rang hollow. His compatriots suspected he simply saw his future in Pounds rather than Rand. For English fans, a lingering suspicion has always remained that the Three Lions which showily adorns his left bicep was less a declaration of allegiance than a licence to bury his trunk in the well of English cricket’s finances and slurp at will.
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His performances on the pitch were often selfish. He appeared to be playing for the benefit of his sponsors rather than his team. Too often his wicket would be surrendered by shots played in fourth gear when the side’s perilous situation required him to remain firmly in second.
Criticism was rejected with the customary shrug: ‘I believe everything happens for a reason,’ a tedious piece of pyscho-babble as meaningless a justification for recklessness as it is an offensive two fingers to life’s less fortunate.
If he had friends in the England dressing room, there were few outside of it. His Nottinghamshire career ended with the captain Jason Gallian allegedly breaking his bat in pieces and throwing it over the dressing room balcony. His subsequent employers at Hampshire were left similarly dismayed when he announced he wanted to be associated with a county side nearer to his Chelsea home.
The concept of the team is simply alien to him. Perhaps if at a young age someone had just put a tennis racket or a golf club in his hand rather than a cricket bat, we’d all be eulogising about the latest Wimbledon champion or US Open winner.
Instead, we are delivering the last rites on Kevin Pietersen’s England career, which is well and truly over. And that is happening for a reason.
