
|

KP on adrenaline
© Getty Images
|
|
The late, demented Hunter S Thompson once said:
"A cap of good acid costs five dollars and for that you
can hear the Universal Symphony, with God singing
solo and the Holy Ghost on drums."
Not for a moment am I endorsing the use of illegal
drugs, or the abuse of conventional ones - especially
in such an esteemed organ as this. But there is clearly
a link between higher influences and the liberating
of creative genius. Among hundreds of artists we
have enjoyed drugged-up, plain plastered or simply
pixilated, William Blake, Amedeo Modigliani, Lewis
Carroll, Dylan Thomas and John Lennon. Pertinent to
this parish there is Kevin Pietersen.
Before elderly readers choke on their gin, I should
point out the juice that helped Pietersen fly so freely
on the Friday of the second Test
against Sri Lanka at Edgbaston
is legal and available to all of us.
The big man was running on pure
adrenaline.
Pietersen was `pumped,'
as the Australians say. He was
`zonking on the gord', as Hunter
S might have put it - and all
around him must have seemed
a phantasmagorical mix of the
tranquil and the furious.
Which is no use at all, of
course, if you are not `focused'.
Or `in the zone', to use the tired
argot of the life coaches and other
trend whores. So in control was
he for nearly all of his innings
that whatever inhibitions he has
(and there do not look to be many)
could not contain his audacity. In this heightened
state of super-control he was able to play a cornucopia
of outrageous strokes, ones his peers would not dare
try. Few batsmen can have harnessed the rush to such
spectacular effect.
At the apex of his 142 in that first innings,
however, was the impossible-to-forget switch-hit
swat for six off Muttiah Muralitharan. It has drawn
overblown praise and some mild criticism.
Alone among his contemporaries Pietersen is not
only capable of thinking of such an outrageous shot
against the leading international wicket-taker in the
history of the game but actually doing it. In one shot
he brought together the highest degree of technical
skill (picking the length early, swapping his hands
on the handle, swinging his right leg forward, then
lifting the ball over the ropes from the centre of the
bat) with invention for which there was no answer.
It was like Sonny Liston's left jab, a Pete Sampras ace:
there was just no answer to it.

|

Pietersen's "switch-hit swat for six...has drawn
overblown praise and some mild criticism"
© Getty Images
|
|
When Murali is reduced to perplexed mortal
it is fair to assume we are witnessing something
very unusual. This is not cricket as we know it. It is
intuitive art, a brush stroke from nowhere.
Yet within a couple of deliveries Pietersen was back
in the hutch and England were setting in train an old-fashioned
collapse. Five wickets for five runs.
So was that single sweep, as Mike Atherton said at
the time, possibly the most audacious shot ever seen
in a Test match in England - or, as Steve James saw it,
a rush of blood, a precursor to self-destruction and
not the work of a selfless and responsible team man?
Writing in The Guardian, James stepped back to
analyse the shot that shook up the summer. And his
judgement was scathing. "The man of the match,"
he said, "might easily have lost England the match."
In a way, he is right. England did subsequently let
Sri Lanka back into the game, just as they had in the
first Test at Lord's, and there were moments on the
Saturday, as Michael Vandort was
fashioning the most patient of
fightbacks, when England were
riding on their nerves again.
James reckons the adrenaline
got to Pietersen. The player himself
conceded: "It was naughty" -
spoken like the hardened pro he is
trying to become instead of a mere
thrashing maverick.
But what a shame it would be
if Pietersen abandoned his wilder
instincts. How unfortunate if
he went from hurricane to light
drizzle. What a loss not just to
England's cause but to the game
itself. It is just such brilliance,
inadvisable in the circumstances
or not, that has saved cricket from
its extended time in the shadows
of football. Have we forgotten last summer already?
I know elite sport is about discipline and
dedication, hard work and application. But, sport is
also part struggle, part theatre. The frailties of even
the best complete the drama. (The selectors dropped
Bradman. Once - but dropped him nonetheless.)
Among the giants of cricket, those that live
most vividly in the memory have not been the
accumulators, the steely grinders. They have been
those wonderful chancers who strive for something
new and exciting. Otherwise we would still be
bowling lobs and stopping cover drives with our feet.
We would not be witness to four runs an over in Tests,
impossible scores in Twenty20, diving stops in the
outfield, wrong 'uns and doosras, reverse swing and
the reverse sweep.
Take Pietersen's daring away and, sadly, there
might not be much left underneath. He goes where
his talent takes him. Generally he plays with
intelligence and selectivity. If he occasionally loses
it, it is a piddling price to pay. When the going gets
weird, the weird get hundreds.
Kevin Mitchell is chief sports writer of The Observer