Is Kevin Pietersen the best?

Arise, King Kev! It is what you have wanted to hear and what you deserve: there is not a more technically accomplished, more entertaining, more driven and generally more complete batsman in the world today. You set your sights on climbing the mountain all those years ago in Pietermaritzburg, and you have finally planted your pioneer’s flag on the summit.

Unsurprisingly, Kevin Pietersen got there in style. His century against South Africa at Lord’s was one of those utterly predictable occasions that sport - which is full of uncertainty - sometimes throws up.

Pietersen wanted a century desperately against the country he left, with more of a wrench than he would now care to admit to, eight years ago and everything he has done in recent months had been building towards this reunion - the brilliant crisis-averting hundreds in Napier and Notting-ham, and the audacious switch-hitting in Durham, were all part of the fine-tuning process.

The suicidal single to get off the mark only affirmed how desperate he was to tell South Africa how well the emigration had gone. Everyone knows he has made pots of money, but he also wanted everyone back in the Rainbow Nation to know that he is far better than they remember. Whatever Pietersen says about being a victim of the quota system, he was a pretty ordinary batsman in his younger days.

There is no doubting his absolute brilliance today. There has long been talk about his headlong rush towards fame, but far more important is his rush to improve himself. The case for Pietersen being the best batsman in the world can be argued over, but surely no other leading batsman today is quite so hungry to learn.

Never let it be said that Pietersen is not up for a challenge. He prepares with near-religious zealotry and the results are before us in all their awesome evidence. In his first Test series against Australia, who were armed merely with one of the best bowling attacks in history, he scored 473 runs, including an innings of 158 at The Oval that turned the tide of history.

“What do you do when you have played the greatest innings of your life at the age of 25?” Richie Benaud asked. It is testimony to Pietersen’s talent that that comment has never been allowed to gain greater currency. Play some more great innings, that’s what.

In his first series against Paki-stan, Pietersen took a hundred off Shoaib Akhtar and Danish Kaneria. In his first series against Sri Lanka, he scored two centuries against lineups that included Muttiah Muralitha-ran. The West Indian attack may not be what it was but Daren Powell, Jerome Taylor and Dwayne Bravo were taken for a double-century in Pietersen’s second outing against them. New Zealand’s bowlers kept him quiet on the first two meetings, but not the third.

Only India escaped a Pietersen hundred at the first series of asking. He might very well have had one against them though - Anil Kumble and Har-bhajan Singh included – had he not sacrificed his wicket in the search for quick runs in Nagpur in 2006. He just about kept his annoyance in check.

In the first Test of the home series against India in 2007, however, Pietersen played what he described as technically his finest innings to date, against an attack that knew how to swing the ball at Lord’s, where it was renowned for darting around. He made 134.

So, less than three years after first stepping on to the Test stage, Pietersen can claim to have mastered allcomers with centuries against all major opponents (he has never faced Bangladesh or Zimbabwe). There are other players in the game today who have achieved this “slam” - Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Kumar Sangakkara and Michael Vaughan - but none have done so with such elan.

Outstanding though the records of Ponting and Hayden are, it must count against them that they have never had to face Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne. Ponting’s game, in any case, looks fragile, brought low by spending his holiday in the Indian Premier League and by wrist surgery. No player in the modern age has had his Test reputation so artificially enhanced by the helmet as Hayden.

Tendulkar, in sheer weight of runs the champion of the day, has raised his game against Australia to a level that only Pietersen and Brian Lara have matched, but his body is creaking and time is no longer on his side. Dravid, like Shivnarine Chanderpaul, has one of the soundest defences the game has seen, but does not threaten to tear attacks to shreds in the way others do. Vaughan has a wonderful temperament but rides his luck; his defence is prone to spring leaks, as Dale Steyn has demonstrated better than most.

South Africa’s Jacques Kallis is as reliable in all conditions as anyone, though he has yet to take a century off Sri Lanka and his record is inflated by cheap runs against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe.

Sangakkara is perhaps Pietersen’s nearest rival today. Ranked No 1 Test batsman in the ICC rankings, he has had the considerable advantage of playing much of his cricket on Sri Lanka’s slow, true pitches, hence his average of 61 at home and 49 away (he has never done much in Tests in England). Ma-hela Jayawardene averages 66 at home, 38 away.

Pietersen, of course, is not without his weaknesses. He is, as Warne once said, “a pretty average starter”. When he first goes in, he can look shaky against pace (as Steyn showed the other day by dumping him on his backside) and against the swinging ball, something purists put down to him standing with his feet too far apart.

Perhaps alone of all the batsmen mentioned here, Pietersen possesses the hallmark of the true champion in his capacity for thinking outside the box. He never accepts convention for convention’s sake and is forever on the lookout for solutions to problems (such as being born in the wrong country).

From his earliest meetings with Warne, Pietersen sought to counter Warne’s prodigious powers of spin by reaching far down the crease and deploying the slog-sweep (he hit Warne for eight sixes during the 2005 Ashes). He reverse-swept Murali for six the second time they faced each other in a Test.

When Pietersen says that as the ball is bowled, he thinks first about whether he can hit it for four, then three, then two, then one, he is not joking, merely applying to batting his brutal, unarguable logic. By the same token, he heavily favours trying to score on the leg side.

After all, there are fewer fielders on that side of the wicket, so why not? At Lord’s, 85 of his first 103 runs came on the leg side, thanks to South Africa’s foolishness and Pietersen’s outrageous flicks from outside off stump.

For the sheer thrill of the ride, not to mention the originality of the headdress, only the mercurial Virender Sehwag can match him. As they are both under 30, they might be reckoned to have their best years ahead of them.

Pietersen may also inspire Ian Bell to raise his ambitions. One tall and strong on the leg side, the other short and favouring the off, Pietersen and Bell have often batted well as a pair. They might be the fulcrum of England’s batting for years to come.

Zat wrote:Is KP the best? No.

JGK wrote:KPs innings here was terrific and as Henry says he has an aura about him but FFS it was against an attack that let Ian Bell score 199.

Rob I wrote:

JGK wrote:KPs innings here was terrific and as Henry says he has an aura about him but FFS it was against an attack that let Ian Bell score 199.

Rather than slag the bowling why not praise Bell's best test innings?