Pietersen says he's not ready for Tests

Kevin Pietersen: 'I'm nowhere near Tests yet' © Getty Images

England batting sensation Kevin Pietersen has admitted that he is not ready for Test match cricket.

Despite a record-breaking start to his ODI career and praise from Michael Vaughan and Duncan Fletcher, Pietersen says he's "nowhere near Tests yet", in an interview in the April issue of The Wisden Cricketer magazine.

While playing down his readiness for an Ashes match-up with world champions Australia, Pietersen does admit that time spent playing with Shane Warne at Hampshire could prove to be a useful learning curve. Speaking of Warne, he says: "He's a genius, and to have a bloke like that wanting me in his cupboard to play alongside him was most definitely flattering. I'm nowhere near Tests yet, I've only played a few ODIs, but playing with Warney will definitely smooth out a possible confrontation if I do happen to come up against him in the summer."

Pietersen's reluctance to put himself in the Test frame is not shared by the nation's cricket-lovers. 83% of 1,000 respondents to a Wisden Cricketer poll on Cricinfo.com said he should definitely be in the Test side. And four out of ten said they would prefer to watch him bat rather than Andrew Flintoff, a staggering result for the novice compared to the country's established destroyer of bowling attacks.

Reflecting on his baptism of fire against South Africa in Johannesburg, where he shepherded England to victory, Pietersen says: "I think that innings was one of the biggest I'll probably play in international cricket, that 22 not out. It just helped me settle down, helped me enjoy international cricket. And after that I realised that it will never be as bad as that - 35,000 people are booing you, every single person wants you out, every single person hates you."

He also has an answer for the doubters who have suggested that his leg-side bias could yet be exposed. "In one-day cricket you have to be able to hit a ball into three different areas at once. You've got to know that if the ball's there, you've got three different areas where you could score. That's how I go about it. I open up the off-side, I go down the ground, I open up the leg-side and I try to make sure I get a run a ball.

Pietersen celebrates his maiden one-day hundred at Bloemfontein © Getty Images

"I play differently in first-class cricket in England. My style doesn't change, I'm a positive player who likes to hit boundaries and score quickly, but in first-class cricket your technique changes, you can become a lot more patient. So in Test match or first-class cricket I won't have to hit the ball through the leg-side all the time. There'll be more scoring options all over."

His admiration for one-day team-mate and mentor Darren Gough is unstinting: "I respect every single thing he says and I love his approach to a game. It helped me a lot to have a senior bloke like that right by my side all the time. In terms of lifestyle, in terms of cricket, everything. He was instrumental in getting me to relax."

And his passion for living in England is equally enthusiastic: "I love the country, I love the people, I love all the players, I love the management," he says.

Tony Greig, the former England captain who was also born and learnt his cricket in South Africa, offers Pietersen some worldly advice: "The only advice I'd give him is that the one thing you can't change is you're South African. The fact that you're lucky enough to be eligible to play for England is like a business decision.

"People who have played for England have always been born all over the place. I guess the only issue now is the timing. The England team is just getting good and people probably want the team to be Anglo-Saxon to its boots," says Greig, interviewed in the same issue of the magazine.

The April issue of The Wisden Cricketer, the world's largest-selling cricket magazine, is on sale from Friday 18 March priced at £3.40 for 100 pages of news, features, interviews, match reports and competitions.