England must play to Pietersen's special needs

England Cricket / Ralph Ellis / 01 September 2010 / Leave a Comment

KP - a one-off who needs to be treated as such?

"Collymore's talent was lost to football too early because too many people couldn't understand his special needs. It would be an even greater crime if cricket treated Pietersen the same way."

KP is a unique talent with unique demands and if England want to win back the Ashes they must understand that

I'm in the middle of reading Stan Collymore's autobiography. I never got round to it a few years ago when it was first published, but it's a fascinating glimpse at the peculiar chemistry of a sports dressing room when one player has a massive talent but a maverick personality.

The star turn believes the rest should be more understanding of his mental insecurities to get the best from him. The workers can't understand why somebody so blessed with ability won't buckle down like they have had to.

It's a good job Twitter hadn't been invented back then or I can imagine Stan, now reinvented as a top broadcaster, getting himself in even more hot water!

That's what happened to Kevin Pietersen yesterday as England's selectors lost patience with their most mercurial talent. They dumped him from the squad for the Twenty20 and One Day Internationals against Pakistan, and then begged Surrey to give him a few games to try to recover his form.

KP responded by giving his 34,000 followers on the social network site an instant idea of his thoughts about the decision. "Man of the World Cup T20 and dropped ... it's a f**k up" he told them. He claimed later that he meant to send a private text but pushed the wrong button, but either way it gives an insight into his state of mind.

England are heading towards a huge problem over Pietersen as November 25 and the first day of the Ashes at Brisbane draws ever closer. They are desperate to find a way to prod him back into some form. Yet even his one big innings in the Test series against Pakistan now has question marks about it. Can we trust the five dropped catches that helped him scratch together 80 at Edgbaston? I suspect he'll be wondering himself if there was something dodgy about that.

This might have been a time for somebody to sit KP down and tell him how great he is, how Geoff Morgan and his fellow selectors have huge faith in his talent. They should have reminded him about his immense performances in the World Cup, and told him how crucial he'll be to the Ashes campaign. They should have flattered his ego, because rightly or wrongly that's what somebody like Pietersen needs. Instead they've dumped him, and done the same thing, incidentally, to Craig Kieswetter who was man of the match in the final but will hand over wicket keeping responsibilities to Surrey's Steve Davies in the T20s and not play at all in the 50 over games.

England are [3.65] to win the series Down Under, but to do it they need to have the biggest talents on the best form. There aren't enough players like Pietersen, people who can take the game away from the opposition all on their own in a single session, to be able to think you can easily do without them.

Collymore's talent was lost to football too early because too many people couldn't understand his special needs. It would be an even greater crime if cricket treated Pietersen the same way.


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