Will the real http://www.senore.com/Cricket/KP-Pietersen-c1806 please stand-up – Opinion
Cricket is a funny game, when the team is winning, nothing seems impossible, but it is the losing streak that triggers alarm bells in the squad of 11 people.
The mightiest teams in the history of the game do not have immunity from the fact that when they start losing all h**l breaks loose and players, who were once brothers, turn against each other.
Team England is facing the same predicament with flamboyant all-rounder Kevin Pietersen being judged as the guy wanting to ruin the foundations of English cricket.
The whole escapade was triggered by KP, who expressed regret and uncertainty about his future as an England player.
And being South African-born, playing for England has perhaps had a toll on the all-rounder. However, cricketing authorities in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c749 should not forget that it was this South African-born player who actually humbled the team from his homeland in the second
Test at Leeds, to keep the three-match Test series alive and save England form losing their number-one spot in the oldest format of the game.
With England losing the first Test to the Proteas, and then faltering in front of the South African bowling in the second encounter, KP was perhaps their best hope against the mighty South Africans.
Other than that, the all-rounder is without a fraction of a doubt, the best T20I player from England because not only can he hit the ball clean but can also intimidate the bowlers enough to force them to bowl bad at him.
Teams all over the world would love to have Pietersen in their ranks as a player, because with his credentials he can always come handy.
However, where he is among the best in England, he is also the most controversial. The batsman has always been a renegade and perhaps with time become just too hot to handle for the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB).
Nonetheless, the England board should take lead from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755, where the cricketing authorities have a history of tolerance towards arrogant cricketers, who were just too precious to be discarded.
KP is a spoiled baby, but be harsh with him and he will bite you back. The England board needs to handle the batsman more professionally, and while maintaining discipline, should cut him some slack.
On the other hand, KP needs to resolve all outstanding issues with his team-mates and has to be the better man in order to prolong his tainted international career.
In recent months, he has shown that he is without a doubt a force to reckon with in all the three formats of the game. But one thing that he needs to remember is that if he exploits his importance, he might find himself walking on a very thin line, and could
hit a nerve that would force the ECB to scrap him for once and for all.
He might be flattered by the big bucks in the Indian Premier League (IPL), but he needs to remember that if he stops playing for the national team, his price will dip in the mega league – which obviously means that he will have to agree to play on a much
lower price than what he is offered now.
Avoiding this unflattering probability, the player has to make peace with the board and his team-mates and let bygones be bygones.
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