Articles will be written and ground to chowder of how Kevin Pietersen-one of the greatest wielders of the Cricket bat of the modern era,was humiliated beyond what would seem allowable for the most prolific run scorer in any invented form of a particular game for his country in the last couple of years.
Pietersen's "I've never felt more loved" after the Lords applause to his century,the "We did what had to be done.We had to come back to India", his "I shall lead you hounds into the field and take you back as 10 gentlemen" demeanor might have all been parts of James Cameroon's most romantic epic as yet,his switch hitting might well be the invention of the century,the madly highlighted Mohawks replaced by tonsured,more civilized crops might all have been the signal he so desperately wanted to send out to the cricketing fraternity since he permanently took the road from Pietermaritzburg to Johannesburg and there-on to Heathrow more than half a decade ago,that the toughest,bravest and the most flamboyant boy in the cricket field had arrived and god help those who dare to take him look him in the eye.
Unfortunately,what started off as one of Leonardo-di Caprio's magical paintings sank just as suddenly as the Titanic.The only difference being that Pietersen's Kevlar-certified vest of principles took the form of a trillion ton iceberg and took along with him someone else doing just as good a job-Peter Moores.Moores in his prime,single-handedly built and structured and gelled together a domestic team that couldn't even pull of a single county championship when he took things in his hands.Pietersen was probably trying to figure out the cheapest flight deal on the Johannesburg-London sector while Moores sent out high-air catching practices with his baseball-gloved,one handed swings.
Right from the time the flamboyance came to the fore on an otherwise gloomy day at The Oval way back in 2005,one thing was certain about the man.Kevin Pietersen wanted to impress.The methods-he didn't care of.15 test hundreds in 45 tests is a phenomenal record.Even by Sehwag's blitzkrieg standards,it's humongous,although the latter probably has another 15 hidden in each of his massive 100s.Every day at the field was a different hair-do,with a different color,all bright and flashy.Blue,Blond,Red.Hell,KP might have well been a peacock up Shane Warne's and McGrath's you know where.The boundaries travelled all over and around Vauxhall main-land area and not even the London Eye could've provided a spectator with a wider horizon of entertainment.
Pietersen was always known to be a man to show an overwhelming sense of wanting to immediately turn himself "totally British" and with every passing test and with his ever growing indispensability,it only cemented in his brain,a lie he had been telling himself for a long time.The cheers,the adulation soaked in and Kevin Pietersen led himself to believe that the three lions stood proud as a result of him and not the reverse.Tattoos of the queen herself on his 16" bicep instead of the three lions couldn't have made this lie a reality.Pietersen was digging himself a pit and filling it himself with the very best of pit-mines,created unnecessarily as a result of an ever lasting desire to show case that his principles and his beliefs wilted under no one.Not even himself.Pietersen had,without his own knowing,dug himself a grave,fit for the bravest of knights.
To think that only 3 months ago,a chapter waiting to be written by the best of biographers with his own bat,would see before it such a humiliating and sudden full-stop is not just tragic.It's heart-breaking.Pietersen was touted to be the bravest captain the country had seen.Or even the world,had a certain Mr.Smith not been secretly devising and executing plans to be Napoleon Bonaparte of the kingdom with his custom manufactured GM 2 pound 10 oz weapon for a long time-slowly but surely.The irony being that the famous words which could've been Smith's own was patented by Pietersen-He came,He barely saw,he Switch hit,he lost his job.Not that Smith would be complaining but the world surely would.
If all goes even remotely well and Pietersen manages to somehow regain the trust of his dressing room mates and co-operates with a man who only a month ago wasn't sure of his own place in the team plane to the Carribean,and the same someone who had suddenly been thrust a job,which should've rightfully been his to start off with,England can even start daring to think of having a feel of the urn again.At the background of all the turmoil back home,Chris Gayle and company would've already started rubbing their palms and smacking their lips at the prospect of winning a major series home and make up for some points lost in the table last year.Shivnaraine Chanderpaul's hunger looks insatiable and the signs look ominous for the men,who would only weeks from now be checking in at the very airport where Pietersen arrived yesterday after an "un-relaxing" vacation at his other home.
Andrew Flintoff is the one man whom the English can rest their hopes on to deliver.Kevin Pietersen will be expected to play his level best cuz whatever the situation be,his massive ego wouldn't let anything dent his career figures.He usually has his level best reserved for the worst of "street fight" battles and the Aussie battle will surely be one of them.
Pietersen might not fight the battle on behalf of the governing body which might pay him his wages at the end of the match but he will in all possibilities bludgeon the in-experienced attack just for the heck of it anyway.We can expect him to turn up black-eyed as a result of an overnight altercation with the ECB chief himself and yet tear apart Peter Siddle's 145 kmph 'canon-balls' to such an extent that might make him wonder if he was still well off bowling beamers at senior college kids with captain Cameron White laughing all the way to the tea-break and gawking at what the whole Pietersen Vs Moores Vs ECB fuss was all about.
Kevin Pietersen was and will in all likelihood live on as the Achilles of world cricket.He may be the most diplomatic and the most accommodative of post match speakers.But at the end of whatever his career may be,people will know,to his mis-fortune that he played for only one person-Kevin Pietersen himself.A boy forced to abandon his place of birth in search of people better ready and equipped to appreciate his physical talents.A man who kept telling people that he's one amongst them now,but deep inside he was one amongst no one.Ah!The irony!
There is every chance in the world that if Andrew Strauss fails to deliver in the Carribean,the board will be resigned to hand over the captaincy back to KP.At the end of all the drama,he may still remove his gloves,put his bat under his armpit and walk off with the "i was right all the while" grin.But all that might prove to be too costly a price to pay for a heavy loss in front of a struggling team so far away or an impending disaster,immediately back home.If not,a captaincy record of 3 tests,1 win,1 loss,1 draw and a 4-0 and 0-5 ODI record would only show to the world,a good 50 years from now,the tale of a brave man who could've died leaving a legacy of un-parelled successes and adulations behind,knowing he was second to none and yet knowing that very fact ultimately brought him his downfall.
If only switch hits worked in real life too.
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