Grafting Pietersen shows his maturity

Kevin Pietersen struggled initially as he made the slowest hundred of his career before opening out as he closed in on a double. Vic Marks writes in the Guardian about how Pietersen briefly resembled the famous blocker Chris Tavare.

Here was Pietersen the grafter, the dutiful grinder, the old pro selflessly reining himself in at the start of what is supposed to be a heavyweight bout – even though it did not feel like one. It is not a role to which Pietersen is accustomed. Nor do we expect it to suit him. But even in the 90s, when he sometimes loses self-control, there was nothing harum-scarum.

James Lawton, in the Independent, says that Pietersen out the team first, and showed plenty of maturity during his 202.

Here he grasped a basic obligation. It was to be the backbone of his team, the guarantee of a solid start to one of the most important Test series England have ever played. He met it with an unswerving concentration and when Rahul Dravid dived for a catch that was rejected by the third official Pietersen's reaction was a perfect symbol of his vast body of work.

He chose to ignore the Indian appeals, utterly, and proceed with the building of an innings which might just prove to be the most significant of the summer. The details tell of escalating authority. In the end he finished in the kind of imperious hurry most familiar to his warmest admirers, reaching his third double century in Test match cricket just before Strauss waved in the declaration.

In the Daily Mail, Nasser Hussain calls Pietersen's double hundred was "as clever an innings as you could hope to see".