IF ENGLISH CRICKET KEEPS GOING BEHIND JOFRA’S BACK, WE MIGHT LOSE HIM FOR GOOD
JOFRA COULD BE FORCED OUT OF ENGLISH CRICKET
As he stood in the middle of st George’s Park, Kevin Pietersen could see his old england team- mate approaching. heavens, it was hot out there. Matt Prior was dressed like a backpacker, baggy shirt, baggier shorts, sandals.
You can do that on radio. Pietersen was suited and booted for the cameras. smart, but a little uncomfortable. he began flapping his jacket, opening and closing it, to cool down. And they bumped fists, like batsmen do, and talked.
They asked after families, after children. ‘everything OK? everything fine?’ still Pietersen fanned. he would know the eyes of the world were on him, watching for signs of the discord that marked his final days with england. Flap, flap, flap, chat, chat, chat. It looked cordial, from a distance.
Only when Prior moved away did Pietersen stop the cooling process, though. Behavioural psychologists call it leaking. The externalising of nervous energy. he wanted it done. he wanted that first exchange over. Then he could move on. What he wants more than anything is to move on. ‘Don’t make this all about the old stuff,’ he says, before we part, interview done. ‘Make it a good piece. I couldn’t be happier now. so calm, so chilled out.’
And he is. Pietersen says the moment he knew he could no longer score runs for england — the point when he wouldn’t have been capable of that level of performance, rather than just wasn’t allowed to play — he let go.
‘I saw Andy Flower last year,’ he says. ‘I asked him, “how are you?” he said, “hmm, I’m OK”. Then he asked how I was. I told him that when I thought I was able and fit and could score centuries for england — up to about 2017 — I was still angry. I knew I should be making Test hundreds and my career was stopped — by him.
‘But when I realised I had no interest in playing for england, that it was over, I let it go. It was a relief — an incredible, cool feeling. I saw Graeme swann at the IPL, I met Matty Prior here, I’ve played golf with Andrew strauss, I live in such a good space now.
‘None of that old stuff bothers me. It doesn’t enter my mind unless I’m asked about it, like now. At the time it matters a lot, a breakdown in any relationship. Things can get hot-headed, all the “he said, she said”, but then you step away and live your life.’
That is what Pietersen, now 39, is doing. he moved from London to surrey and a quieter life. he took up golf five years ago, plays every day and is already a three handicap. he works ferociously with his foundation to save the north African white rhinoceros from extinction. And he talks about cricket to anyone who will listen. In south Africa for this Test series he is working with talksPORT, sky and local channel supersport. As he did as a batsman, he plays a few shots.
‘To be able to call a game similarly to how I played it,’ he muses, ‘people enjoy that. some didn’t like the way I played, they thought I was reckless, but to articulate that, to show how much I thought about it and give my perspective — people are discovering I might have a cricket brain after all. There was a lot of method in my madness. I love talking about that. It changes people’s opinions hearing how I thought about the game.’
Yet, inescapably, Pietersen’s past invades his present. so much of his history informs the way he thinks about cricket now. It is there in his thoughts around the handling of Jofra Archer, or the modern relationship between the eCB and its playing staff.
Pietersen was the first english cricketer to excel in three forms of the game: Test, one-day and T20. he was the first to have to decide between franchise cricket and international commitments. Compromises that are commonplace now were battlegrounds when he played. It’s not that he’s bitter, more that he notices the changes and what drove them.
‘I’m man enough to say I made mistakes,’ he says. ‘I acknowledge those mistakes. I apologise for some of the stuff I did. But some of it I was forced into because of the environment I was in. I look at the way the england team are led and looked after now, and think back to 2008, 2009 and 2010 when I was the only person playing every form of the game. If I was treated better then, if I was treated as players are now, it would have been different. But I was the first of a kind and I was pushed into a corner.
‘All you guys see that now — and if you don’t, you’ve got blinkers on. The way I was treated, the way I was briefed against, the way I was made to feel I was siding with Lalit Modi’s IPL as opposed to Giles Clarke’s eCB caused huge friction. You’ve got eoin Morgan, captain of the one-day side, and two years ago he’s missing games to play in the IPL. I talked about missing Tests to make the money all the other players were making and that caused massive problems.’
he puts on a pious voice. ‘how can you even think of missing an england game? how can you possibly think about it? Now, they miss england games left, right and centre to play the IPL. I was forced to behave the way I did. I wish I played in cricket now and enjoyed the fruits as they are. People still point fingers at me over this. It’s a lot harder to ask why and I don’t think the other side get asked about their side of it. strauss contributed to a sky documentary and said, “I pushed KP away when I should have asked him in”.
‘Our relationship was hurt when he took the captaincy and brushed me aside and he was completely against me missing games for england to play in the IPL. so there was friction over that. And when I asked, after one massive blow-out, to travel back from the Caribbean to see my wife who was appearing in Dancing On Ice, and the eCB firmly said no — that I couldn’t see my family, having had the captaincy taken away from me — that hurt, too. But no one’s gone and asked them if they regret it.
‘What I hated was the sensationalism because it has left me with a public persona that isn’t actually me. I made the documentary on sky with Nasser hussain hoping that people might think, “F****** hell, he’s not that dude”.
‘The eCB were using the newspapers — your paper in particular — to brief against me, and it changed public perception. so I still get hammered for stuff that happened so long ago, I’m still perceived as some hot-headed maverick who was all about himself. And that couldn’t be further from the truth.
‘I wanted to be treated the way players are treated now. I wanted to cash in like all the other top players. Because it’s a job. I’m done now. I don’t get millions from the IPL, I don’t have a central contract. I’ve said this to a lot of sportsmen. When the time is right, cash in. An injury comes, or they take against you, and they’ll get rid of you as quickly as they can.’
No doubt Pietersen’s route into english cricket was a factor, too. he has long made the barbed observation that he was an englishman when he was scoring runs, and a south African when he failed, but it is when he sees parallels in the treatment of Archer that a warning should sound.
This has been a difficult tour for Archer. Questions are being asked about his up-and- down pace — 90mph one over, 80mph the next — and an elbow injury it is said is not visible on scans. Last week, before the Port elizabeth Test, Archer was painted as being in a bowl- off with Mark Wood. Wood won. It may be just an unfortunate sequence of events, but Pietersen is instinctively sympathetic to a fellow import who may be suffering in an unfamiliar environment.
‘sometimes we should just let people be,’ he says. ‘Britain is meant to be this place that encourages and looks after everybody — but Archer is copping it at the
KP ON... HIS RADIO AND TV WORK To call a game similar to how I played it, people enjoy that. They are discovering I might have a cricket brain after all KP ON... HIS CALMER LIFE I live in a very quiet lane. It’s completely different from when we lived in the same street as Hugh Grant, Frank Lampard and Liz Hurley — it was crazy street
Kevin Pietersen fears Jofra Archer could be lost to english cricket, unless his bosses learn to handle him properly.
Archer is hopeful of playing in Friday’s fourth test but his winter has been hit by elbow and consistency issues.
Pietersen, commentating on the series for talks Port and sky, said: ‘Britain is meant to be a place that encourages, looks after everybody — but Jofra is copping it, probably because he’s from the Caribbean.
every time i scored runs i was english, every time i didn’t i was a “south Africanborn batsman”. the situation could escalate. He might decide ‘‘stuff you guys’’ and just play franchise cricket.’
Pietersen also said he had offered to help england as a batting consultant, but had received no response.