Sorcerer and apprentice

A game consisting of clearly delineated individual contests, cricket seems to contain huge potential for the creation and maintenance of personal rivalries. Most of them, however, are low-key and intimate, lost in the corporate struggle. Who remembers who dismissed or punished whom last time, or the time before? Only, generally, the opponents themselves; even then, the game's structure tends to the complex, and competition to the diffuse.

Yet when Shane Warne bowls to Kevin Pietersen, their rivalry is unmistakeable. On occasion, as at Lord's on Pietersen's debut, or as most recently at the Adelaide Oval, it is almost as if the match has been suspended around them while they work through their differences - and their similarities. For these are, if not quite peas in a pod, men cut from similar designer cloth, with their partying instincts, playboy lifestyles, and look-at-me attitudes. Plus, of course, they've played more cricket together than apart: it was Warne as captain of Hampshire who lured Pietersen from Nottinghamshire, who talked up Pietersen's potential to play Test cricket, and who deals with a mingled sense of vindication and frustration at Pietersen's successes.

This is a model for Warne's cricket friendships, which have tended to be with players and individuals like him, from Ian Botham to Brian Lara, because these tend to validate his own personality. In his introduction to Pietersen's new autobiography, Crossing The Boundary (2006), Warne describes his mate as "a kind and generous guy who just wants to be liked and play cricket": he would almost certainly settle for a similar description of himself.

Pietersen reciprocates with testimonials still more lavish, and heartfelt - and the friendship suits him too. He needs to feel appreciated; his relations with South Africa and Nottinghamshire soured when he did not feel so. Warne's endorsements when he arrived at the Rose Bowl were a tonic to his system. Warne's presence as a bowler when he made his Test debut, he has explained, made all the difference: "It helped that we were mates. It relaxed me out there and helped me to be positive against him... I really enjoyed facing him." Pietersen made 57, including a huge six off Warne into the second tier of the Grand Stand at Lord's, and 64 not out; Warne claimed six crucial wickets in a winning cause, including Pietersen caught in the deep. Honour was satisfied: in individual terms their matches could hardly have been better balanced. In the spirit of two other great cricket friends-cum-rivals, Keith Miller and Denis Compton, they spent the night of the climactic day out on the town.

Rivalries, however, cannot always be so satisfying to both protagonists. Methinks that sometimes Warne and Pietersen protest their mutual admiration too much. Their first meetings on the county circuit were actually inauspicious. When Hampshire hosted Notts in June 2004, going down to a two-day defeat, Pietersen impressed Warne with his poise and footwork in an innings of 49 from 88 deliveries. In his introduction to Crossing the Boundary, Warne takes up the story of when they met again, seven weeks later at Trent Bridge: "When he came out to bat I stood at the top of my mark and gave him some serious verbals. I wanted to see how he would react. And it was just how I thought he would. When I was coming in to bowl, KP pulled away, and, well, it really started then. I gave it to him again verbally and then, second ball, he was out, caught at bat pad. Nothing needed to be said." Nothing is, for Pietersen does not give his own version of the encounter - an intriguing omission.

Warne wasn't about to give Pietersen any gimmes in Test cricket either. He bowled for much of the 2005 Ashes series with a fielder at deep midwicket: Pietersen's long reach and loose wrists enable him to slog-sweep deliveries that others would push to cover. Warne teased him: "Why aren't you taking me on?" Pietersen protested: "Bring your cow corner up and I will hit you." Warne did it cleverly at The Oval, posting the cow corner at three-quarters of the way to the boundary to tempt the shot, but only if Pietersen could be sure of hitting it cleanly. Pietersen shaped to play and aborted three or four times, finally changing his mind too late and being bowled. Warne might then have cut Pietersen's Test career short in the second innings, having him missed, at slip, and famously missing him personally, also at slip, before his mighty 158 was underway.

Even then, Warne gave little away deliberately. He is a generous opponent - but not at his own expense. There was admiration but no concession in his response to the innings. When Jack Dempsey went down to Gene Tunney in the epic "Long Count" fight 80 years ago, he immortally conceded: "You were best. You fought a smart fight, kid." Warne crossed to Pietersen as the batsman walked off, and advised: "Savour the moment." Good advice, but not without a tincture of "enjoy it while it lasts". Warne's opinion of Pietersen in My Illustrated Career (2006) is likewise seasoned: "He has a good temperament and whatever happens against us, I think he has a great future, as long as he doesn't get carried away with off-field stuff, and keeps his feet on the ground." Again, not without a hint of "do as I say, not as I do."

In the current series, Warne has been more minatory still, going perilously close to losing his cool, especially in his importunings of umpires. It evinces both how much he cares about the series, and also how he fancies it will be won - by the same kind of relentless aggression as Australia were submitted to in 2005. An incident at the Gabba suggested that this was causing tensions between these best of friendly enemies. A waspish throw from Warne to Adam Gilchrist passed too close for Pietersen's comfort; he curtly bunted it away, and responded with a couple of words, the second of which was "off".

At Adelaide their rivalry took a new turn, Warne seeking to smother Pietersen in the first innings by coming round the wicket and pitching endlessly into the footmarks from the second day; the batsman stepping out with pads like a man scotching a spider. It was not great bowling, but it was the work of a great bowler: only a bowler completely secure in his game and name would have dared lay down such a creeping barrage. Pietersen had magnificently the better of this contest, compiling another 158, but Warne conclusively the better of its sequel on the last day, when he reverted to over the wicket and bowled Pietersen behind his legs with his first ball. It was, in truth, a nondescript ball, and not even Warne could spin it into an anecdote. Asked at the press conference afterwards whether it had been part of a plan, he wracked his brain before giving up: "Uuuuuuummmmm... no."

On reflection, though, Warne may be being too modest. Their interactions over the last two and a half years now shade all their contests, each man trying to assert himself - Warne to fortify his reputation, Pietersen to build his. Each, therefore, is a little ahead of himself, letting the analytical give way to the emotional. Pietersen in his book, for instance, had already discounted the possibility of Warne ever bowling him round his legs: "I know he has got people out like this, but not me, I'm sure of it." Oops.

This is dangerous territory for both men. In his autobiography Serious (2002), John McEnroe describes how his rivalry with Bjorn Borg turned on those moments when one or the other lost focus. When he won that immortal 34-point point fourth-set tiebreaker in the 1980 Wimbledon final, McEnroe thought he was about to break Borg's incredible four-year hold on the tournament. Borg fought back with such unexampled ferocity that McEnroe became upset: "Come on, isn't enough enough?" The momentary distraction was enough to finish him.

Later that year, however, they met again at Forest Hills, where Borg was the pursuer, seeking his first US Open title. This time Borg seemed to be storming home, taking the match into a fifth set, a vantage from which he was almost unbeatable. But sensing that his opponent was thinking about the title already rather than the match, McEnroe rallied and won. "When we shook hands," recalls McEnroe, "I could see that he was devastated." When McEnroe beat Borg again at Wimbledon the following year, he fancied him "oddly relieved".

McEnroe then illuminates the other problem area of a great rivalry: that moment when the roles shift. The best years of his career, McEnroe considers, were those when he was in Borg's shadow. He enjoyed the tennis, the tour, the pursuit of his potential, the thrill of the chase: "I loved being the lone gunfighter, working my way up the ranks, but still not being the guy." But when his great rival quit, the top on his own was a lonely place: "Borg's leaving tennis was... a huge blow to the sport and for me personally... I had a very tough time motivating myself and getting back on track."

Warne v Pietersen is a relationship conceived on the lines of sorcerer and apprentice. How will they deal with capabilities closer to parity? How will Pietersen find life on his own? Watch this space - even if it is two feet outside leg stump.