A 21st century entertainer

Kevin Pietersen: no ordinary cricketer © Getty Images

Kevin Pietersen announced his arrival as a Test cricketer with that beserk century at The Oval last summer, an innings of matchless audacity to bring down the curtain on one of the most nerve-shredding series in history. Some players might have looked upon such a performance as a once-in-a-lifetime freak and dined out on it for evermore. Pietersen, however, is no ordinary cricketer. If 2005 was good, then 2006 is threatening to be spectacular.

In his first two innings of the summer, Pietersen scored precisely 300 runs - 158 at Lord's and 142 at Edgbaston - two performances that have been liberally laced with brilliance. His technique is so quirky and home-spun that it takes a while to spot the solid cricketing principles that underpin his every shot. But the big strides, the head over the ball, the hawk's eye, the rubber wrists - they've all come together to create a dazzling stage show.

After the Ashes it was feared that fame would turn Pietersen's head - his love of bling and self-promotion enabled him to lap up the adulation in a manner that few of his team-mates care to emulate. But beneath the posturing lies one intensely calculating man. It was once said of Don Bradman that he was a "genius with an eye for business". In Pietersen, we might just have hit upon a 21st Century reworking of Cardus's famous quote.

In Bradman's day, business was trilby hats and best suits; and his cricket was suitably austere, with scarcely a shot played in the air throughout his career. Pietersen's business on the other hand is entertainment, which means sixes, risks, aerial shots and flying by the seat of his pants. At least, that is how it appears on the surface. Duncan Fletcher, for one, recognises the planning that goes into every innings. "I find him a very clever cricketer," he enthused. "He doesn't go out there and just play by instinct."

Well, not all the time, at any rate. His reverse-swept six off Muttiah Muralitharan is the stuff of instant legend, but hardly the sort of percentage stroke that Fletcher would advocate against one of the greatest bowlers of all time. But for Murali, read Warne, or McGrath, or Lee, or Shoaib Akhtar. The bigger the personality he's up against, the more desire there is to ride the adrenalin wave and slug it out toe-to-toe. It all makes for entertainment at its very, very best.

He says
"The best form of defence in my case is to take it to the bowlers but the reverse sweep for six was naughty. I don't think I'll play that again." Never say never ought to be Pietersen's motto. It's best not to assume that's the last we'll see of that shot.

They say
"The difference between the teams was KP's knock. Whoever saw it witnessed something special - who knows how good he can be? He is something really special, I don't think that's a secret." Andrew Flintoff is among the man's admirers, after his 142 at Edgbaston set up England's second-Test victory.

What you may not know
Err ... not a lot actually. Pietersen does not seem to deal in closely-guarded secrets. Every innings, every press appearance, every haircut, every awards ceremony is a chance for some more publicity. The son of an Afrikaner father and a British mother, he left his native South Africa aged 20 to seek British citizenship and was shooed into the national team almost as soon as he qualified four years later. And the rest is yesterday's fish-and-chip wrappings.

What the future holds
He's already nudged his way into the world's top ten batsmen, and his Test career is still less than a year old. And now that he has taken his maiden international wicket as well, there seems little the man cannot achieve. KP's spectacular arrival in the 2005 Ashes, not to mention his commanding one-day performance in front of hostile crowds in South Africa the previous winter, showed him to be a man who can perform under the most intense pressure. He is set to become the cornerstone of England's batting in both forms of the game.