Kevin Pietersen: A study in mavericks

KP will now step up into a new world, one that can embrace him

We watch the maverick as much for his fall from fame as his rise to glory. There is in some way a very sadistic pleasure that we derive from the reality of his demise. We convince ourselves that for all his renown and wealth, we are in some twisted way entitled to derive pleasure from his vulnerability.

A maverick’s end, to be fair, is much more intriguing than that of an ordinarily great athlete. The best of athletes grapple with time, with weakened limbs and slowing reflexes. There is a part of them that whispers into their weary hearts that deep inside there still lives the invincible athlete and that they just have to find him. They know it isn’t easy, they know it doesn’t last long, but for that final shot at glory, it doesn’t need to last long. Just the two weeks on the green grass in June-July, Federer tells himself. They are reluctant to let go of what has been theirs for a lifetime. The lucky among them can do it for one final time and leave on the high that they are accustomed to, while the rest grudgingly come to terms with their mortality and make peace with age. The ending itself is often graceful and filled with gratitude.

But a maverick’s battle isn’t as much with time as it is with himself. The gift at a point becomes harder to summon, and when arrived, it disappears without warning. He can spend hours in the nylon cages of the cricket nets but might never rediscover his genius. He begins to get frustrated, for he doesn’t understand the change; it isn’t the limbs and it isn’t the reflexes. One day it’s there and the next day it’s gone. Poof. Just like that.

And on one of those evenings of frustration, he begins to doubt himself, and at that moment, the clock starts ticking. To a maverick, that is the start of his demise, and the beginning of a self-destruct sequence. It is tremendously hard, impossible even, for him to acknowledge that he no longer possesses the very thing that made him special, the very idea around which his whole individuality was based. He hangs around, playing here, playing there, hoping that it will come back to him. Eventually, a few of them, very few, recognize that it has passed and are thankful for when they held it, while others, still enchanted, keep searching right into the sporting twilight, when their careers end in the dingy corners of a weekday newspaper.

As for Pietersen, we will never know. A nation that was happy to have him in spite of all his inadequacies in the days of his glory and a board that was happy to sell his name to eager fans to fill their coffers, today, abandon him without cause, and that’s a disgrace. Amongst all the hushed tones and confidentiality clauses, you can’t help but wonder if he is being made a scape goat. How does it become one man’s burden when eleven men fail to bowl out and outscore the opposition? The most logical explanation, of course, would be that the senior players and the management, themselves fearful of their jobs after a humiliating tour, offered up the one man that the media would heartily devour.

Looking back though, Pietersen never belonged in England anyway. It was a nation that thought it was doing him a favor by offering a home and a place in the eleven while the truth is that he could have walked into any eleven in the world. They took the victories that he brought with gladly yet questioned his loyalty and commitment every time they failed as a team. Perhaps he will be better off without an England contract, free to express and explore in places where he will be appreciated and where angry tweets are just angry tweets and not acts of treason. He will still be frustrating and he will continue to cause problems, but he will also win games and bring crowds, only this time nobody questions his loyalties. He has, at last, away from the confines of a central contract and the shackles of unreasonable media, the freedom to be a true maverick, the quirks, the genius and all.