Pietersen sends ton-up message to selectors by
KEVIN PIETERSEN battered Oxford’s students for 170 off 149 deliveries in his first game of red-ball cricket for 15 months — then insisted the incoming ECB chairman Colin Graves has told him everyone has a ‘clean slate’. Pietersen’s quest for an improbable return to international cricket began as his scriptwriter must have known it would: with sumptuous strokes, a standing ovation and much of the old bravado. The fact that his first hundred since the Old Trafford Test against Australia in August 2013 came against a modest attack, at a windswept Oxford, in a game not deemed first-class, is beside the point. Pietersen’s only hope of playing for England again is to score lots of runs for Surrey — wind, rain or shine. Here was the first box ticked, in style. Asked what Graves had said to him when the pair spoke over the phone last month, Pietersen replied: ‘He said he wants the best players playing for England, and everyone has a clean slate. Right now, it’s just about me hitting the red ball. I think it can help England going forward. ‘I took confidence from the way I played in Australia [at the Big Bash]. It was as well as I’ve ever batted. I’ve been given a lifeline, and I have an opportunity to get back to doing something I love that was taken away from me prematurely.’ England meet West Indies in Antigua today, and comparisons will be inevitable. There will be mixed feelings both in the Caribbean and at Lord’s. Whether Pietersen’s journey will prove more futile than fruitful is another matter. The first aim of the new regime at the ECB has been to stop the sniping; the second may be to keep Pietersen sweet in case
English cricket needs him after he retires, possibly in a mentoring capacity. Regardless, the evidence here — as if it were required — suggested he is deadly serious about reclaiming his place. Nearly 10 years on from his Ashes-clinching century at The Oval, Pietersen cannot have imagined he would need to prosper in The Parks simply to stay afloat. But in front of a crowd of several hundred — almost unheard of in these parts — and with Surrey stumbling to 113 for five, he had a captive audience and a job to do. After a careful start, Pietersen opened up. His 50 came from 63 balls, his hundred from 110, and his 150 from 137. By the time he was out for 170, caught at mid-on off the bowling of Abidine Sakande, a human sciences undergrad from St John’s College, the total was only 310. He knocked one spectator off his stool with a fierce drive, dented a Peugeot 207 with the first of two successive straight sixes, and unveiled his full repertoire. Stealing headlines and causing damage, Pietersen might never have been away.