Time to Pieter out?

By Adam Appleton


Many of England’s batsmen find themselves under serious pressure after poor performances against Pakistan, none more so than Kevin Pietersen.


The three-match series – which has been taking place in the United Arab Emirates due to the current security concerns in Pakistan – has seen Pakistan go 2-0 ahead and take a commanding position in the third match.

Such a result has seen blame fly around, much of which has been squarely aimed at England’s batsmen.

Their numbers so far do not make for good reading, they have managing only 352 and 399 runs overall in the respective matches.

Kevin Pietersen is taking a good brunt of this, not only due to his lack of runs but because of his dismissals on this tour.

In the First Test he incredibly decided to hook Umar Gul whilst still on nought, giving away his wicket as he was caught at deep square leg.

Then in both of his last two innings’, the old fallacy of slow left-arm round-the-wicket bowling has haunted him with Rehman trapping him in front on both occasions.

What worries England fans is that he has not learnt from his mistakes. This weakness has been spoken about for at least two years now, yet he has either not done enough to counter it, or is simply unable to.

Obviously only having mustered 49 runs from 5 innings’ at an average of 9.8 and a top-score of 32 does not stand in his favour.

In fact, there is a favourable chance that these technical failures might be forgiven had he managed 300 runs in the series.

What does stand in his favour is that he is not the only horribly under-performing batsman in the team.

He is also the most senior, therefore the most embedded run-maker that is struggling, meaning he will likely get more chances.

Eoin Morgan and Ian Bell also find themselves under scrutiny, particularly the former as he is the most junior batsman and looks like he is finding the adaptation to Test match cricket difficult.

Indeed Morgan will likely be the first to get dropped even if there are several strugglers simply because he is the most junior.

This may well save Pietersen from further scrutiny as the selectors will not want to get rid of him likely having been the cornerstone of the batting line-up since he burst onto the scene against Australia in the 2005 Ashes.

However, it could also add to the pressure.

As he is this senior figure, many will say that he should start acting and more importantly batting as such.

He does not seem to consider employing a Plan B batting style if he fails to come in and dominate the bowling straight away as has happened too many times recently and will continue to happen if his confidence is low, which it surely will be.

England need more frequent scores from him as he is filling this senior role. If he is scoring runs, the pressure will be off players like Eoin Morgan, enabling them to play a little more freely, the same way Trescothick and Vaughan did for Pietersen in his early days.

This is not the first time that Pietersen has come under the cosh.
Going into the 2010/11 Ashes in Australia, both Pietersen and Cook were under dire pressure to re-prove their worth to the team after both had lean patches in the run-up.

766 runs and an Ashes victory later Cook had shoved the critics words back down their throats.

Pietersen’s own contribution was comparatively quiet, but in a normal series 360 runs at an average of 60 would be a clear warning of form.

But he out-did this with a superb home series against India as England took a 4-0 whitewash and the Number 1 Test Team ranking.

Scoring 533 runs in 6 innings with 2 centuries, Pietersen was leading run-scorer, edging out Ian Bell and Rahul Dravid.

This shows that Pietersen has had form in the past year and perhaps, like the rest of the English batsmen, he has simply struggled to make runs on the wickets in the UAE.

England selectors and fans alike will hope this is the case because it will be a sign of weakness if it comes to the point where Pietersen has to be sacrificed.

Not only is this because there is no like-for-like replacement for him, but because he is such a gifted individual once he is in flow.

He is arguably the most talented batsmen of his generation along with AB De Villiers and Michael Clarke and England need him firing out runs to maintain their Number 1 Test status.

ENDS