Handling mavericks: The England-Kevin Pietersen fallout

Kevin Pietersen

AB de Villiers is acknowledged by the International Cricket Council (ICC), many of his peers and cricket experts as the best all-round batsman in the world currently. In my opinion, though, the world’s best batsman will be in the commentators’ box during the upcoming T20 World Cup in Bangladesh. Yes, much like what happened during the 2012 edition of the T20 World Cup, Pietersen is expected to make an appearance in the official broadcaster’s commentary panel.

Pietesen’s recent axing from the England team has been well publicised; his supporters have come out strongly on Twitter rubbishing the decision to show their complete backing for the batsman. His employers in the English county circuit (Surrey) and in the Indian Premier League (Delhi Daredevils) must be secretly happy that the 33-year-old will now be available to play for the entire duration of their tournaments.

For the international cricket fraternity and for fans like us, it’s a great loss to not see a fine batsman scoring runs in his inimitable style. Team England have decided to drop a batsman who has scored memorable Test centuries against all leading teams and been their best ever ODI player by a good margin. Furthermore, he was the winner of the Man-of-the-Series award in England’s only World Cup triumph – the T20 World Cup in 2010.

For all his misdemeanours during the Ashes (most of them have not been confirmed) and apparent reports of poor behaviour by his captain and coach, is Kevin Pietersen such an unimportant player in the team setup? And the more I think about it, more I wonder about how a similar equation of a similar performer would have been handled in a corporate setup? Would a struggling organization have let go of their star salesman on the basis of a poor last quarter performance?

Having been a part of many sporting teams at different levels and management teams in different organizations in India, I can safely say that the corporate world would have had a Plan B to try and get a star performer toe the line with the team’s requirements. And for a complicated but important player like Pietersen, a player who has shown his commitment towards the team over the years, the team management surely has to take the blame for the fallout.

Australia’s David Warner, who had looked like he, too, was heading on a different path with his team management, has managed to turn the tide to reel off important 100s in the last 2 Test series he has played. Following the Ashes series that they played against each other, Pietersen and Warner have traversed opposite routes. While Warner has become one of the MVPs for his team, Pietersen was made the scapegoat for the losses.

From a fan’s point of view, all I can say is that I have a feeling of being robbed of watching a great batsman show his skills on the international stage. And if I were a team member of teams scheduled to play vs. Surrey and Delhi Daredevils, I would have been left with no hope but to pray for Pietersen not venting his anger by scoring runs against my team.