The KP saga- a missed opportunity for World Cricket

The mental age of a 10 year old, or an Australian spy seeking to destroy English Cricket? What is wrong with Andrew Strauss? I know we (sports fanatics) are the greatest romantics and we yearn for comeback stories even if it does not make any sporting logic. What else will explain the entire Brazilian media running a campaign for Romario to be included in the 2002 world Cup or for Kaka to be included in the 2014 World Cup? But for the case of including KP in the English cricket team, it made perfect commercial and sporting logic. Except for one man’s ego and personal grudge. And at the expense of millions of fans, that one man won.

KP was in superb form playing for Surrey in the county

Kevin Pietersen is no sage. He has made mistakes. Lots of them. But, none of them were grave enough that he did not deserve a recall after spending almost 18 months out of the side. First, it makes absolute cricketing sense to get him back to the team. In the last 6 months, he has been batting as well as he has ever been. He was superb in the Big Bash. And then when he was asked to play county cricket to have any chance of playing for England again, he played superbly for Surrey for the last month and a half. And yeah, in between there was a small matter of giving up a lucrative IPL contract to play county cricket for free. If this does not show commitment towards the country, I don’t know what will. At the same time, England were playing a test series against a depleted West Indies side and could only draw the series. After a wretched run that included the horrendous World Cup, there was never a better time for England to bring KP back and inject a new spirit to a team that plays like robots.

From a commercial point of view, it makes even more sense. With an Ashes coming up, the idea of Johnson and Starc bowling to Kevin Pietersen on a green Trent Bridge wicket would leave cricket fans salivating. In an age, when most youngsters use cricket and T20 as synonyms, Test Cricket needed Pietersen more than ever. When the English public is fed up of the mediocrity that Cook and his men have shown in the past year, despite having all the Bells and Roots of the world, England needed Pietersen more than ever.

At a time when cricketers ( read Gayle, Malinga etc) are giving up Test cricket to play franchise T20 cricket, KP was an exception. He knew he was good enough, and he proved it again. But instead, for Mr Strauss, “trust” seems to be more important than “performance”. Will Ancelotti ever drop Ronaldo if someday his Real Madrid teammates stop trusting him? No, obviously no. And if there is a player who is head and shoulders above the rest of the guys, you don’t need to be best friends with him to include him in the team.

But make no mistake. This is not KP’s loss. It is our loss. Although he is a better Test batsman than a T20 specialist, KP will make a lot of money in the next few years playing franchise T20 cricket. And we will be left watching re-runs of his 206 in Mumbai and his first Ashes century. “Trust” is indeed a funny word.

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