England Cricket / Ralph Ellis / 09 March 2010 /

Kevin Pietersen has been in woeful form since last summer but punters are keeping the faith and backing him to be England's top batsman during the Test series against Bangladesh. Ralph Ellis wonders if he will reward them.

At least the good news for Kevin Pietersen overnight was that he wasn't out to a left-arm spinner. The bad news? He failed again anyway, caught behind for 20 against an occasional leg spin bowler.

There's an old saying that form is temporary, while class is permanent, which is clearly how Betfair's punters view the problems KP is facing at the moment as he goes on searching for the magic touch which has deserted him. They have kept him as [3.7] favourite to be England's top batsmen in the two-Test series which starts on Friday. But for that to pay out then one of two things must happen. Either Pietersen must dramatically rediscover his touch, or the rest of England's batsmen have got to fail so dismally it would be the most disastrous cricket tour since the Ashes were invented in the 1800s.

Pietersen has scraped together just 69 runs from seven visits to the crease on this tour now and it's clear that his natural, exuberant confidence has been undermined. In 13 innings in either Tests or ODIs since November last year when he returned from the surgery that kept him out of the tail end of England's Ashes triumph, he has scored only 270 at an average of just 20.77, only once passing a half century. If it was anybody else with those sort of figures he'd be in danger of being dropped.

You wonder if Pietersen could have done with a flying visit from Graham Gooch. It probably wasn't a coincidence that his best score on tour to South Africa came shortly after the Essex director of cricket had spent a temporary coaching stint with him. Instead he had to make do with 45 minutes in the nets working with Andy Flower and a local left-armer, and the reports of his progress weren't encouraging.

What's worse is that the latest disappointment came after captain Alastair Cook had managed the game against a Bangladesh 'A' team purely with the intent of giving Pietersen the chance to rebuild his morale. Cook bowled himself for five overs before lunch and will be grateful that the warm-up match no longer carries first class status, because figures of 0-111 would destroy his career statistics! He and Michael Carberry served up a deliberate succession of full tosses and long hops, and none of the fielders bothered much about stopping the ball so as to make sure the hosts declared on a decent target that would give England two sessions of batting practice.

So if Pietersen isn't the man to back to be England's top Test batsman, who is? Well captain Cook, at odds of [5] and miffed at being left out of the Twenty20 World Cup party, seems to be doing his talking on the field. He looked in good nick as he took advantage of the time at the crease he'd engineered.

Graeme Swann is [1.84] favourite to be leading wicket taker, with doubts over the fitness of [6.0] shot Stuart Broad who has had back problems made worse by a hard bed in the team hotel. Tim Bresnan looks like being asked to fill an all-rounder's role after being promoted to number four in the order this morning.



Five things you might not know about Tim Bresnan

1. Born in February 1985 in Pontefract, Yorkshire, his dad Ray played cricket for the local Townville club. Brother Ritchie is still an active member - and Tim turns out for them a couple of times a season.

2. He was 16 years and 102 days when he made his Yorkshire debut, the youngest player to represent the county for 20 years

3. His 2006 England One Day debut was a disaster - at his home ground of Headingley he bowled only two overs at a cost of 29 runs before being taken out of the attack

4. He's into scuba diving and is working his way through a course to be a master diver - so far he's done the Maldives, the Barrier Reef and the Red Sea in Egypt

5. He says his favourite meal is his mum's Yorkshire puddings with onion gravy and pickled onions. Ugh!

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