The Guardian view on Kevin Pietersen: expensive, but worth it
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Version 0 of 1. The haircuts, the aggression with the bat, and the juvenile fallouts with cricketing authorities in South Africa all spelt trouble. He may have smashed England’s path to their greatest Ashes win, and scored more runs in his early Test career than anybody since Bradman, but the same ego that worked wonders on the pitch was disastrous away from it. There were texts to the enemy dressing room, an autobiography that glorified the author at the expense of his team-mates, and then finally snubbings and sackings as the selectors concluded, in Graham Norton’s words: “Maybe, um, team sport’s not for you.” We need to talk about Kevin, again. Former team-mate turned team-enemy and now cricket director Andrew Strauss has just whacked Pietersen’s hopes of a return to England out of the ground. The bloody-minded KP lost no time in showing the national side what they have lost, chalking up a career-topping 355 not out for Surrey. Sometimes team spirit has to trump individual brilliance: after Roy Keane bad-mouthed Ireland’s preparation for the 2002 World Cup, he was told to pack his bags. If cricket were football Strauss might have been right to dig in. But English cricket has deeper worries than morale and even victory, like its slow drift from being a truly national game to being the preserve of older men. It needs stardust. Pietersen has it. And so he should have been picked. |