Kevin Pietersen: The quintessential 'Joker' of world cricket

Kevin Pietersen: Controversies never leave him alone

“Why so serious? Let’s put a smile on that face.” This is an extract from the movie The Dark Knight. Well if I had to correlate this to someone apart from Heath Ledger, it would be this guy that I am going to talk about.

Nature follows the law of equilibrium. So with a purpose, this someone special was sent to play, to conquer and to rule English cricket all the way from Pietermaritzburg as an agent of chaos. He is a “Joker” in the pack of conventional Englishmen.

The father of switch-hitting: Kevin Pietersen.

Much known for his off field activities, media controversies, tattoos and weird hairdos, but when it boils down to batting, the six-and-a-half feet Natalian is stylish, innovative and equally delightful to watch. Neither does he follow the textbooks nor does he seek advice. He has his own ideologies and game plans that he follows majority of the times and keeps himself self motivated.”Cocky” is the term once used by Geoffrey Boycott for his attitude.

The evil madness started with his selection for the South African tour. Pietersen was booed as a traitor throughout the series because he had left South Africa as a protest against the quota system before joining the ranks of the English.

KP, as the whole world calls him, decided to give it back with his batting and ended up grabbing the player of the tournament medallion with a standing ovation from the same hostile crowd.

It was whole of the batsmen fraternity’s turn to take KP’s evil toil this time. Pietersen was back in the news for switch-hitting. The switch-hit is a new generation shot where a batsman’s stance morphs into its mirror-image as he swaps his grip at the point of delivery. The law states that a bowler can’t perform such stunts as he has to inform umpires in advance which end he will bowl from, and which hand he will use.

Again, KP became cricket’s balancing force. The undue edge from the batsmen was taken off. In 2006, a law stating that one cannot change his grip while playing was enforced after KP hit two mammoth sixes off Scott Styris’s bowling, switch hitting the first one over covers and whacking the latter through long off.

Even after that, he was warned on numerous occasions for playing the same shot again and again. I still remember the cry face of Tillakaratne Dilshan, when ultimately he had to call the umpires, to handle this switch hitting beast.

He indeed is an attention seeker. And KP was back to form. In the next series, KP described the Indian southpaw Yuvraj Singh as a “Pie chucker”. Pie chucker is a term used to describe a bowler who simply rolls his arms over and prays for the best, basically a good-for-nothing bowler.

But he got a taste of his own medicine this time. Yuvi quoted this in one of the press statements: “It shows KP hates getting out to me and if a useless bowler is getting him out five times then I would say it is quite a useless batting.”

Controversies came by and went. It had become a part and parcel of his lifestyle by that time. And he continued to remain bold, aggressive and fearless. In July 2008, the Times called him “the most complete batsman in cricket.”

You cannot take the evil out of sight for long. It was time for another call. India was playing against England at Trent Bridge. Zaheer Khan was the victim in this case. The contest was ignited as the man on crease, Zak, noticed some jelly beans lying around him at the short leg area.

The slips corridor was given an Indian-style bat-waving bust up by the tail-ender, which presumably were thrown to mock his unfit body. It was suspected it was KP’s idea of mischief but he kept denying that it was him.

This man has always been a catalyst initiating some sort of entertainment in the world of cricket. Some peaceful time went by. He was out of scene for a long time but not for long.

Location: Leeds
Opponents: South Africa, the English captain Andrew Strauss and the coach Andy Flower.

He became the chief architect in disrupting the harmony in the English dressing room. KP’s marauding innings that evening went in vain as he exchanged some derogatory texts on the captain and coach to his Protean friends. Consequently, he was dropped from the side.

But who on this planet can keep this mischievous personality out of the game. He was back like a haunted spirit, but not on field this time.

ESPN hired him as the official commentator for the ICC World T20. To the contrary, he proved to be a lucky charm and England went on to lift the Cup.

His reverse sweeps, high back lift cover drives slaughtering sixes off the spinners, mighty punches and wristy flicks made everyone go bonkers. In 2012,The Guardian called him as “England’s greatest modern batsman.”

The character still remains a crowd puller and the English cricket talkie is still grossing more and more pounds with the increased fan base. Not only in England, his world wide fan following was made evident in the latest edition of IPL, wherein KP was termed as the most missed foreigner, whose absence resulted in Delhi Daredevil’s demise as well.

This time, it was:

Opponent: Australia
Venue: Old Trafford, Manchester, 2013.

It was his comeback game after many injuries and retirements with England leading the series 2-0. In the third Test, England got a couple of early blows.

KP was sent to the middle to show his class. He utilized his experience and mental strength. With a lofted cover drive, he reached his ton to salvage his team from a precarious spot. Thus, he became the highest run scorer for England across all formats of the game combined. With the divine grace (the rain) and KP’s heroics the match ended in a draw.

“I like to perform on the big stage when the team need me. I like to stand up and be counted. As an English or Australian player, your career is defined in how you play in ?Ashes cricket.” KP told this in the post match presentation.

After the third Test, the Australian media came up with another controversial allegation on KP but he has clearly refused his involvement in the usage of silicon tape on his bat to avoid nicks being detected by “Hot Spot” technology.

For me, the more successful the villain, the more successful the picture holds true for the English cricket as long as KP is there. I personally rate Joker above the Batman. On similar lines, I would put Pietersen far above his gentleman counter parts.

I think KP should think renaming himself to K’EVIL’ Controversial Pietersen.

Keep up the entertainment quotient mate!