Kevin Pietersen - The missing link in the jigsaw puzzle

It’s high-octane viewing when Kevin Pietersen, is in full flow

At Mumbai, he swatted spinners of the caliber of Ojha and Ashwin like flies with all those heart-stirring, crisply played lofted shots, stupefying sweeps, debonair drives and lissome flicks. That day, his magic bat explored every nook and cranny of the Wankhede Stadium. His aura is such that his mere presence at the crease puts doubt in a bowler’s mind, and gives a migraine to the captain, while setting a field.

So, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that when England’s batsmen struggled for scoring options against Indian spinners on a slightly abrasive surface in the final of Champions trophy at Edgbaston, they were missing KP. Ian Bell, Trott and Cook are fine players in their own right. But the X-factor in that England line-up is always reserved for one man, and that is KP.

Kevin Pietersen with his twinkling footwork, and by lofting spinners down the ground, would have taken the fight to the Indian spinners. Once KP disrupts a spinner’s length with his sweeps, and lofted shots, he uses the depth of the crease to stay back, and wait for a few long hops on the way. He also usually looks to play out the best bowler in the opposition’s ranks. It shows, there is more to Pietersen’s batting than just tonking bowlers all over the park, as he plans, analyses and executes those plans to perfection.

As the game against India in the final was reduced to virtually a 20-over dogfight, one can turn back the pages in KP’s career, and look at how he played in the one-off T20 match at Kolkata in 2011-12. On a track that had variable bounce, and offered considerable assistance for spinners, chasing even a paltry score of 121 was a daunting task. Barring Jadeja though, none of the Indian bowlers had an answer while bowling to Pietersen. KP showed us, he was a clever batsman too, by putting India’s weak-link, Yousuf Pathan, to the sword.

Now, not for even one minute, I am trying to suggest that if KP was around, the victory against an on-song Indian side was a mere formality. Even if KP was playing, it could have very well panned out into an anti-climax, with him getting out to the first ball he faced. But the way England’s top-order stumbled and floundered, while playing Indian spinners, there was no question that KP was the missing-link in the jigsaw puzzle. Remember, England won their only ICC tournament in West Indies in 2009-10, due to KP’s Herculean efforts.

The egotistic, Kevin Pietersen, always divides opinions among cricket lovers. However, there is no doubt that he is a god-gifted batsman, and a true game-changer. Pietersen’s batting is like watching a James Bond movie with full of slick plot-twists, and high-adrenaline action. Even the cricket boards all over the world like KP to play, as he puts more bums on the seats. In short, cricket aficionados all over the world missed England’s talismanic batsman in action during the Champions trophy.