Profiles / Andrew Hughes / 13 November 2008 / Leave a comment

We've had one Test match, a full ODI Series and the Twenty 20 for 20 match to see Kevin Pietersen in action as England captain. What have we learnt about him as a captain and which past captains does he most resemble, asks Andrew Hughes.

This is not the definitive moment of Kevin Pietersen's captaincy; that may well occur next summer. However, it is the end of the honeymoon, a period that would have been extended if he'd carried off the Caribbean loot from Antigua. But that was not to be. As he prepares for the rigours of a seven match one day series against India, we have seen enough to ask not what he sort of leader he may turn out to be, but what kind of captain he actually is.

It is inevitable that we might look for echoes of captains past. For a start, he is the best batsman available to England, standing taller than his contemporaries to a greater extent even than Gooch or Vaughan. He shares an accent with Greig, a flamboyant batting style with Gower and a taste for a fight that recalls Gatting, Close or Illingworth. But I think the closest former captain to Pietersen is Ian Botham.

The parallels are intriguing. Both were the best players in the team at the time of their appointment. Pietersen has a Bothamesque positivity, a commitment to the value of instinct and attack. If we are to believe media reports, it was Pietersen who persuaded Harmison out of retirement, insisted on Samit Patel playing in the one day team and changed the ethos of the team to attack. Against South Africa this summer, England packed their middle order with powerful hitters and employed pace bowlers in the middle overs. It was a spectacular success and a refreshing return to positive cricket.

In the wake of the summer triumph, much was made of Pietersen's charisma and his belief in letting his players express themselves. The same things were said of Botham and neither of these qualities are in themselves negative. But as Mike Brearley said, charisma is not the same thing as leadership. And captaincy is infinitely more complicated than telling eleven players to play their natural game. Unless you happen to have the best players in the world, this will not be enough. They will need careful handling, patience, considerateness, support; a combination of skills that proved beyond Botham.

Steadiness, or the ability to be resolute under pressure and heavy criticism is another quality required of captains. Botham proved to be surprisingly sensitive to criticism, both within and certainly from without. And back in 2005, Michael Vaughan stated that, despite appearances to the contrary, Pietersen is not actually a confident person. He has unshakeable belief in his own ability, but that isn't the same thing. He has, Vaughan says, a need to be loved. In contrast to the calm assurance of Dhoni, the grumpy resilience of Ponting, how will this more brittle personality stand up to the pressure of losing, of the daily grind of media duties, of enduring endless questions, many of them fatuous, but all requiring patience and diplomacy?

There is one more aspect to the Pietersen captaincy, something that Botham did not have to deal with. There is a lingering suspicion that whilst his team mates respect Pietersen for his batting ability, they do not respect or even like him as a person. Last year a senior England player was quoted as saying, "We really want to like him," suggesting some effort was required in that direction. Then there are the rumours of previous rifts with Peter Moores and the fuss that was made about gaining Flintoff's support, as though the new captain needed to make a particular effort to win over this influential team member.

This matters because there will be times when he needs to bawl out players, perhaps even Flintoff himself. At those times, he will need the rest of the team to fall in line with him. Will he be able to do it? Time will tell. Perhaps he did after Tuesday's defeat by a Mumbai XI, a result that has seen England's price on winning the first one day game on Friday drift further to [2.6] with India on [1.61]. The markets for top England batsman haven't quite settled down at the time of writing, but I'd expect Pietersen to be on offer at somewhere around the [4.5] mark with key man Flintoff available at [6.0] or so.