KP or not KP? That was a question as this series began, and now it has been answered. On the ground he took by storm four years ago, prancing like Whistlejacket, Kevin Pietersen cut a forlorn figure at Lord’s, hobbling after the ball as would a particularly gouty laird. His 32 and 44 involved a lot of very hard yakka, as his Achilles tendon undermined his footwork. Rest and rehabilitation were essential. All the same, he burnishes England’s batting with a sheen of class they otherwise lack, and his loss will be felt.
It is hard not to feel a pang of sympathy for Pietersen at times. He is a magnet for criticism because his talent is so abundant, and because from this is imputed a messianic self-belief. In fact, Pietersen always sounds a little insecure to me, too urgently in need of praise. Marcus Trescothick, in his autobiography, described how England in his time encouraged Pietersen ‘to feel there was nothing he could not do’. Trescothick would sit with him as Pietersen waited to bat ‘and talk about the great innings he had played on previous occasions; that he was the only player alive who could play some of the shots he did’. As at Cardiff, such encouragement has not always been a blessing.
Five years into his Test career, Pietersen’s replacement Ian Bell has flattered so far only to deceive. The batsman whom I would have preferred, in complete confidence that no selection so heretical could ever come to pass, is Mark Ramprakash, not only because his Ashes average is 42 versus Bell’s 25, but because he is not such a known quantity to Ponting’s team. A hundred first-class hundreds deserves a final chance for fulfilment; it would get the dancing crowd in too. Anything for a bit of free-to-air television coverage of the Ashes.