The Highs and Lows of Kevin Pietersen's England Career
Kevin Pietersen turns 35 on 27 June. Pietersen’s career has been a medley of ups and downs, and it most certainly has never been boring. Since first arriving on the England scene, Pietersen has always found a way to make it into the headlines—sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not so good.
To mark his birthday, we take a look back at some of the highs and lows of his career. Feel free to add your own Pietersen highs and lows in the comments.
High: Three Consecutive Centuries on His First Tour of South Africa
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Kevin Pietersen said he left South Africa because of the quota system. What was always omitted from this version of events is that when Pietersen was playing in South Africa, he wasn’t exactly the swashbuckling batsman everybody came to know. He was a lower-order slogger and distinctly average spinner.
Pietersen said quite a few things which irked quite a few South Africans upon leaving, but on his first tour to his native country, he scored three ODI centuries, just a few weeks after making his international debut. It was the best possible way he could have announced himself.
High: The Ashes 2005
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In 2005, a few months after making his international debut, Pietersen was picked ahead of Graham Thorpe for England's 2005 Ashes series.
He started off alright, with a couple of half-centuries, but his Ashes-clinching century in the final Test is what elevated him to cult status almost instantly.
High: Appointed Test Captain
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In 2008, Pietersen was handed the England captaincy in both the Test and one-day format. The decision came after South Africa beat England on home soil. On debut as captain, against his native South Africa, he hit a century in true Pietersen style.
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Low: Stands Down as Captain
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Pietersen’s tenure as captain didn’t last long. Then-coach Peter Moores and KP never really got on. Although the pair denied there was a rift between them, by January 2009 cracks had become distinct.
Emergency talks were called and Pietersen wrote in his newspaper column that "this situation isn't healthy,” per the Mirror. A few days later, Pietersen stood down from the captaincy gig, just five months into his tenure.
High: Winning the World T20 as Player of the Tournament
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Pietersen did have an incredible ability to go from one extreme low to another extreme high. Little over a year after the disappointment of his captaincy tenure he helped England win the World T20 in the Caribbean.
He finished as second highest run-scorer, with 248 runs in six matches at an average of 62.00, a feat which earned him the honour of being named player of the tournament.
Low: Announcing on Twitter That He Is Dropped
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Fast forward a few months and Pietersen hit yet another extreme low. He was dropped from the England squad for their home ODI and T20 series to Pakistan.
He decided to break the news on Twitter with an interesting choice of words, per the Guardian (link contains profanity). He later apologised for his outburst, but KP fans will feel he had a point.
Low: the Text Message Saga of 2012
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Between the dropped-via-Twitter debacle and 2012, the pendulum continued to swing for Pietersen. In-between, there was an Ashes win on Australian soil, the first series win there in 25 years, as well as a 4-0 drubbing of India which saw England climb to the top of the Test rankings.
But a 5-0 defeat in the ODI series, as well as Graeme Swann saying in his autobiography that Pietersen was never worthy of being a captain, kept the scales tipping back and forth.
Then, in the summer of 2012, Pietersen was up against his old foe South Africa once again. Only this time, it was his fellow countrymen who landed him in hot water. Pietersen was dropped from the side after it emerged he had sent derogatory texts about captain Andrew Strauss to the South African camp.
Low: No Central Contract and the Reintegration Saga
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What followed after the text message saga was something quite remarkable. At first, he was not on the list of centrally contracted cricketers and, for the most part, he thought his career was over.
There was a rather odd YouTube video by the man himself, where he spoke a lot but didn’t really say anything of note.
Then followed the “reintegration campaign,” as it became known; it was a route for Pietersen to get back to international cricket after upsetting quite a few people. He did return to international cricket afterwards, but it’s a low because it was all so completely bizarre.
High: Winning the Ashes in 2013
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Like water off a duck’s back, so was the text message saga and the reintegration for Kevin Pietersen. He scored a century in the third Ashes Test of the 2013 summer and became England’s all-time leading run-scorer across all formats. England won the Ashes and it looked like all might be dandy in KP’s world.
Low: The End of His International Career
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But nothing is ever constant with Pietersen and in the return Ashes series in 2013, England suffered a drubbing. The fall out from that massive 5-0 defeat was too much to handle, though, and Pietersen was ousted.
They were beaten 5-0 in Australia and Pietersen managed to get past 50 just twice on the tour, yet he was England's top scorer for the series. The ECB decided the best way forward was without Pietersen.
Nobody ever really explained exactly why England management saw fit to continue without KP, but the overall impression was that he just didn’t play very well with others. His autobiography would later cause a storm on many different levels and to this day, many still wonder if Pietersen might make a surprise comeback despite being told on more than one occasion that the KP ship has sailed.
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