KP: The Book Review

Kevin Pietersen is a man on a mission. Once England’s best batsmen, he wants to shed his reputation as the problem child in the England cricket team dressing room. He wants to get get back into the international spotlight. KP: The Autobiography is the weapon of choice.

So why write these two sentences?

“I have nothing against James (Taylor), but the fact is, at five foot six he’s one of the shortest men currently playing county cricket. His dad was a jockey and James is built for the same gig.”

According to Wikipedia, Sachin Tendulkar is pretty much the same height and two of the greatest ever batsmen, Brian Lara and Don Bradman, measured just two inches taller. But that’s just a minor point.

Pietersen seems to be a man who can’t learn from mistakes. While you might have some sympathy with his early experiences in South Africa and Nottinghamshire, he is plainly a man that is corrosive in a dressing room. This book is a long laboured rant about players, coaches and administrators who have “wronged” him.

I first saw KP at my local county club, Nottinghamshire. Although the team was pretty average, this player was clearly going places. An exciting batsmen and decent fielder, Notts had a star on their hands. Clearly there were off-the-field issues which are detailed in the book. It seems no one dealt with his talent well, while the likes of Duncan Fletcher and Michael Vaughan later did so to devastating effect in the Ashes in 2005.

However captains and coaches come and go and Pietersen has fallen out with most of them. The book details the fallouts with the likes of Peter Moores, Andy Flower, Matt Prior and Andrew Strauss. He protests about the parody Twitter account but would happily text the opposition about his “doos” skipper. After a few chapters, who did what and who said what, becomes tedious. There is little detail about his background and what drives him as a cricketer.

Pietersen, ably assisted by Piers Morgan, has burnt all his bridges and will never play for England again. He plays little or no first class cricket and has no form in any format. Even at his best, KP was a player who mixed huge centuries with a number of soft failures. He gifted his wicket away in a manner that was alien to the likes of Rahul Dravid and Hashim Amla.

Pietersen was a player of great innings, rather than a great player.

The comments on Taylor show a man who was too arrogant to learn from his errors of judgement. He claims to want to help young players, but he may have ruined Taylor’s. After a while the contradictions become grating. Pietersen talks over happy times at the Indian Premier League, mixing with the best players from around the globe. These are his “mates”. However, these are also players who deal with him in a small dose. Most who dealt with him on a regular basis, found him too divisive.

On the dustcover, he pleads: “All I ask is that you read it. Then you can judge.”

I loved watching KP in top form. He was an amazing batsmen for Notts and England. But this book is going on eBay.