KP gets in saddle for African adventure
Former England star will now focus on conservation
THE moment of Kevin Pietersen’s retirement, caught behind off little known Pakistani all-rounder Faheem Ashraf at the Sharjah International Stadium last week, was one of the few low-key events of a career spent in the headlines.
It caught many by surprise as word seeped out on social media that Pietersen had played his last game, but the man himself had moved on long ago. Pietersen knew it was time to go last year, but honoured contracts already signed in Australia and the Pakistan Super League.
Now back at home in Surrey, he is very much looking forward to the next phase in his life, one he hopes will be spent in conservation, a world he has become immersed in since his sacking by England four years ago.
Introduced to wildlife preservation when Mark Boucher took him on a rhino tagging operation, Pietersen has thrown himself into fundraising for projects working with endangered animals in Africa and India.
He set up his own company, Sorai (Save Our Rhino in Africa and India) which started with branded bats, but has moved into clothing merchandise online. The profits go to different conservation charities.
Pietersen has opened one store in Mosman, Sydney, and is looking to expand through retail deals in India over the next few weeks. Documentaries are planned in Africa and India as Pietersen aims to spread awareness.
“I knew from mid-to-late last year that my appetite to improve as a player had gone. I just wanted to honour these contracts and then that was it. It was the inability to get myself up for practice, to get better and work on my game. I just thought that was it, my time is up,” he tells The Daily Telegraph.
“Over the last three or four years I have got myself heavily involved in conservation in Africa. It is not an overnight thing. I have my heart and soul back in Africa in conservation. It is about giving back and trying to save animals, particularly the rhino, from extinction and, because I have something that is bigger and better to go into, it has fast-forwarded my decision to retire and made all my emotions towards it really positive.
“I have got something which is going to make me feel a better person if I can do something that is much more important than sport. I was lucky to be a professional sportsman and now I can apply that to bigger and better things.
“It is about using my skill set and connections to raise the money, work and be hands on helping to stop poaching. We launched Sorai online and sold all our products out in two hours. There is a huge appetite in India from some big retailers. We want to move in to South Africa, then the UK and UAE. It is a slow process because I don’t want a lot of people involved. We want to raise as much as we can for the animals.
“I don’t want to raise money to pay for people in offices to have coffees and claim petrol for going to meetings. This is about getting the money to where it will do the most good.”
One off- shoot of his England career ending has been Pietersen reconnecting with his African roots. He no longer feels he has to ignore his South African heritage in order to fit in to an England dressing-room.
“It has given me a calmness, peace in my life to spend time in the bush where I am most happy,” he says.
“If I had to choose between a Test hundred at Lord’s or being in the bush on foot with the animals, I will take the animals every single day. But I also remember that the Test hundreds at Lord’s have given me an incredible opportunity to use connections I built through my cricketing career.”
Pietersen says he has had offers from franchises to stay involved in cricket and has spoken in the past of wanting to work with the England one-day side.
He has had conversations with players in recent weeks trying to persuade them not to give up red-ball cricket, believing Adil Rashid and Alex Hales are wrong to concentrate on one form of cricket.
“These guys retiring from red-ball cricket to pursue white-ball cricket are making big mistakes. Your value decreases when you jump out of your whites. I have spoken to a couple of youngsters over the last month and tried to persuade them to continue to play red-ball cricket because it keeps your value.
“I was lucky enough to play 100 Tests, but if you have only played a handful of Tests and give up on redball cricket you are viewed differently from someone who has fought through a long career and been through the ups and downs and scored Test hundreds. It puts you in a different league.
“The amazing thing is that, despite all the franchise leagues, Test cricket between the big nations is stronger than T20. I did not believe that until I was lying in my bedroom in Australia during the Big Bash and was fuming South Africa versus India was not being shown on television. The same thing happened in Dubai when I could not see South Africa versus Australia. T20s were on but I was not interested in watching them. I wanted to see a big Test series. I think that is where Test cricket will be in future years – just the stronger nations playing.”
It was noticeable at the weekend that the England twitter feed shared a picture of Pietersen celebrating a Test hundred and thanked him for all the memories.
Pietersen was touched by private messages from former teammates and opponents. It will take time for the wounds to heal with others and some relationships will probably never be repaired. Pietersen accepts some of the blame, but also believes there was a failure to understand how hard it can be for an outsider to fit into the world of English cricket.
“An England dressing-room is quite an interesting place to be as a foreigner. You feel accepted, but you know you are only a stone’s throw away from being tossed aside. I played my whole career knowing every single time I failed I was ‘South African-born Kevin Pietersen’, but every time I played well I was English.
“I probably said things I shouldn’t have but I was always fighting for my career. When you are a foreigner in a dressing-room people are quick to judge.”
Where once Pietersen was an IPL rebel, chasing the dollar at the expense of his England career, now the ECB encourages its players to go to India. Possibly it is because they do not want to create another Pietersen and a dressing-room schism.
“If you now asked the powers-that-be who were around in my time, and they were honest, they would say I was ahead of my time [about the IPL]. When Australia were fighting with their cricket board I was in communication with those players and I said make sure you do it all together. Do not let anybody jump out of the circle of trust because if you do and go alone yourself, you will end up like me.” —