The Pietersen obsession: why we cannot stop talking about Kevin

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/may/13/kevin-pietersen-obsession-england-cricket

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It is difficult to say which is more unbearable: another instalment in the Kevin Pietersen saga, or watching England play cricket. The idea that the solution to the one lies in the other is temptingly simple, it must be said. However, it is up to you whether you think it is far too simple, or whether you think Andrew Strauss and the ECB are far too simple to see it.

Related: Kevin Pietersen ‘devastated’ by England snub but Andrew Strauss stands firm

In a sense both positions are irrelevant because – as the 437th inconclusive press conference on the matter confirmed on Tuesday – the line can never be drawn. “Massive trust issues” prevent a current return, though not a future one. Nor, amusingly, do they prevent Strauss offering Pietersen a role as an adviser on one-day cricket.

One thing is clear: the concept “Kevin Pietersen” is the black hole of English cricket, from whose event horizon there is no escape. Indeed, it bends simplistic laws of time and space by swallowing even things that theoretically predate it. I am literally incapable of hearing the title of Lionel Shriver’s most famous novel – published a full two years before Pietersen had even made his international debut – without thinking of radio phone-ins about Kevin Pietersen.

I used to think that had to change eventually. I used to think that at some point in the future, I would be able to catch sight of that book’s spine on my shelf and not reflexively hear two generic men shouting at each other. “He’s the best we have!” “He’s not worth it!” When oh when could I return to the halcyon days of innocence when We Need to Talk About Kevin just made me think of a teenage sociopath using a crossbow to commit mass murder?

Without getting bogged down in relativity, I now realise that happy place is perpetually beyond my reach. The last time this debate reared its head, when the much-lauded incoming ECB chairman, Colin Graves, suggested there may be a route back for Kevin, I see I remarked that none of us should rule out the argument being the last thing we heard before we died, even if that expected departure date was decades away. Clearly, events have rendered that projection hopelessly optimistic.

The debate about whether there is a way back for Pietersen is likely to be the last thing my grandchildren will hear before they die, in their beds, peacefully, at the age of 136. Megalomania has often given a fillip to science, and I am given to understand that cryonic advances today are basically being driven by the Kevin Pietersen Society’s desire to restore him to this rightful place in the England batting order. There is no point in criticising the brilliant minds now involved in the questionable technical enterprise. As the physicist and inventor Leo Szilard once remarked: “This is not the tragedy of the scientist; it is the tragedy of mankind.”

Then again, perhaps the cosmic size of the Pietersen problem requires us to think cosmically about it. Only a few weeks ago, Stephen Hawking was asked about the universe-shattering event that was Zayn Malik’s departure from One Direction, and he answered the question with relish. “My advice to any heartbroken young girl is to pay close attention to the study of theoretical physics,” he said, “because one day there might be proof of multiple universes. It would not be beyond the realms of possibility that somewhere outside of our own universe lies a different universe – and in that universe, Zayn is still in One Direction.” Indeed, that notional heartbroken girl may care to know that in a further possible universe, “she and Zayn are happily married”.

Is there not something there for bereft Pietersen fans – and indeed those who wish he had stayed South African? Many appear to have already relocated to the universe where his current Test average is something other than 47 – they must now be buoyed by the possibility that, somewhere, he is chalking up triple centuries every innings. Or, at the very least, in for all eternity at The Oval, having notched up 648 at time of going to press.

Elsewhere in this alternative universe, Strauss is now the MP for Kensington and Chelsea, having been elected with the traditional eye-watering majority last Friday. After all, it was only three months ago that Strauss – a Celebrity Conservative – was being linked with the seat, following the resignation of Malcolm Rifkind. (He’d also been touted when Corby became vacant back in 2012.) As Hawking says, you may care to pay close attention to the study of theoretical physics and accept that, somewhere, Strauss is on the fast track to being an inevitably inadequate minister of something or other by 2020, while Michael Vaughan’s first act as director of cricket has been to recall Pietersen.

Not keen on that one? Then the universe – certainly one of the alternative universes – will provide. Inconceivable though it may seem, we must not discount the possibility of a universe where English cricket is not just going to be run a different shade of idiotically, as indicated by the apparent wild goose chase upon which Graves dispatched Pietersen as almost his first act within the job. And if even that doesn’t offer comfort, I can only leave you with my own preference: that the untried Malik is brought in at No4 for the Ashes, during which he averages 105.