Pietersen's best option

It goes like this. You meet someone, you like the look of them, you invite them over to your place, events take their turn. Soon you cannot resist one another and you throw your palpable desire and excitement at every waking hour of your suddenly symbiotic life. Nothing, it seems, can break your bond. You move in together. For a while lust and need sustain your relationship as you travel the world carrying all before you.

Then the lust fades and the need is questioned. Selfish interests and extraneous demands betray your common ground. Niggles begin, then affairs, mistrust, white lies, black lies and exasperation. Bitterness creeps in as you feed from only your own side of the story. You are wronged and you share this with friends. Some take sides, others refuse to become involved. You argue violently. The air around you becomes toxic. You split up. You say mean things about each other in public. Hatred overrides everything, including common sense. An unpleasant divorce is inevitable. A divorce from which there is no return.

And neither have Kevin Pietersen and the ECB found life together easy.

The die is cast. On the day Andrew Strauss was officially introduced as England's new director of cricket by the new chief executive officer, Tom Harrison, the talk was all about Pietersen. You have to hand it to Kev. Monday was a hell of a day to score 300. Each boundary and each milestone must have felt like body blows to the board's new guard. By the end of Tuesday's myriad media engagements, Messrs Strauss and Harrison were sagging at the knees.

After seven years in the England dressing room, on Monday night Strauss and Pietersen were able to talk one on one, without off-siders or witnesses. But they are from either end of the game's kaleidoscope and the final handshake must have felt just that. Final. It seems that never the twain shall meet. Richie Benaud insisted there is no such thing as tragedy in sport, but this is close. It is almost Shakespearean in its narrative and distance. It is certainly Shakespearean in its desperate ending.

For Strauss, it was simple enough. There is no trust. Pietersen's infamous texts, his book, his infatuation with the IPL, his apparent indifference to authority and his frustration with those less gifted or relevant around him gathered as one against the ECB, the two England captains of the age, the coaches and the dressing room. Strauss pressed hard for the responsibility to lie firmly at the ECB's door, but no one is fooled that most of the players, and specifically the captain, Alastair Cook, want to go it alone. They had better go well. The public are irritable, there may be a rising.

Had Alec Stewart landed Strauss' job, Pietersen would have been back in the fold by today. Had Michael Vaughan got it, the odds would have hovered around even money. But once the name Strauss came from Harrison's lips, KP's fate was sealed. He has only himself to blame. Which is not to feel oddly sorry for him.

Colin Graves, the chairman elect, led him down the garden path and Pietersen had a memorable crack at opening the front door. Not that anybody ever doubted his ability - though 355 not out was an outrageously extreme example of it. No, ability was not the issue. The issue was trust - or, "You are a high-maintenance liability matey, and we have no faith that the same old problems won't resurface in a year or so." So Straussy simply told KP that he was not a part of his plans for the summer. The legals prevent anything stronger or more finite. Just as they prevent the full explanation that is demanded on the corner of every street. Strauss might have left his options more open but that would have compromised Cook, whose view of Pietersen can barely be printed.

If Pietersen is as eager to play for England as he claims - and there need be no doubt about this - he now has an option. Not a bad one either, given the finality of that handshake the other night. He could choose to start rebuilding that trust himself. He could show contrition - not with a mea culpa but with an honest assessment of his own misguidedness these past three years - and then commit himself to Surrey in all forms of the game for the rest of the summer. He could make a mountain of runs, ongoingly reiterate his determination to win back that trust and his place, and prove that he is buying into English cricket by lighting up the county game. If he kicks both the IPL and CPL into touch and turns out at Bristol, Northampton and the rest of the county grounds that he once bestrode with the air of a man sprinkled with stardust, he would force a review of his position. He would do county cricket and its faithful a favour and, best of all, win friends in the heartlands of the game.

This is Pietersen's moment to give back by not giving up. English cricket adopted him, looked after him and provided the platform for nine years of extraordinary deeds. There were happy times in a period of mainly triumph and celebration. Of course, such a move is beneath his talent and his record. But those are not the issues to hand. The record speaks volumes for itself, the talent is as evident today as it was at Lord's in July 2005. The issue to hand is, well, you've got the gist of the "t" word by now, along with commitment to the common cause.

Pietersen should let this English summer work in his favour. He can play the fans and stay on every lip in the land through the power of his performance and the credibility of his message. He can publicly support the captain and the team, and he could show respect, if also deep disappointment, for Strauss' decision. Only then can redemption in an England shirt become possible.

In turn, should Pietersen find the will for this route, Strauss would have to take the KP blinkers off. Strauss is a class act, a man of immense integrity, careful thought and sensible planning. Indeed, his gifts are well aligned for this job. He knows that he will need to spread his wings to fully do it justice. It was daft to offer the player he was axing a peripheral role around the one-day game. Better to offer him a lifeline. Better to test his soul.

Back to the byword of the moment and the fact that the ECB better align its own stars pdq. Pietersen's trust is on the edge too, if not tipped over it. Colin Graves says one thing one day but another the next. We know this because Strauss said the four of them - out-going and incoming chairman, CEO and director - were unified on the decision. Thus, as one door opened, another slammed shut in Pietersen's face.

Graves could do worse than call KP and explain his misleading and very public encouragement of a month or so ago. The whole thing is a shambles and has been for more than a year. There is no obvious answer. Opinion is widely evident and hugely divided. The genius of Pietersen would be to stand above it and make some surprising moves.

Meantime, England can shut everyone up by winning. Now there's a thought.