The Red Bull run

In the Courier-Mail, Robert Craddock looks at the many sides of Kevin Pietersen, the man with the greatest potential to unsettle Australia during the Ashes.

Kevin Pietersen is hyperactive at the best of times but he becomes even more so when he throws down a can of caffeine-infused Red Bull just before he bats. He does it to give an electric edge to his senses and, as a consequence, often has a slightly manic appearance about him when he arrives at the crease. That, in turn, can prompt him to set off for death or glory singles to get off the mark - the Red Bull run as it has been dubbed in England. The Australian side is aware of this little foible, and so they should be.

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The reason he currently has an Achilles heel injury is that on the recent tour of the West Indies he repeatedly jogged up a mountain in St Kitts. He may seem like a maverick but there is a disciplined side as well. He has a fetish for promptness and his biographer Paul Newman said in every interview session he had with Pietersen for their book, Newman never once arrived first.