Defending ‘champion’

Reviewed by Rohit Mahajan

KP: The Autobiography
by Kevin Pietersen.
Hachette. Pages 324. Rs 799

Kevin Pietersen, in this grand defence of his life and decisions and actions, makes a strong case for himself. He set about the task of proving that he is a misunderstood, mismanaged genius — that’s easy enough, for he actually is a genius, he is misunderstood and was mismanaged in his time as an England player.

Yet, though his defence of himself is careful and elaborate, for which he collaborated with a skillful writer, it’s clear that this man is practically unmanageable. He’s got a massive ego, which, however, is quite brittle; he obsesses about the astonishing skills he possesses as a batsman, and he is troubled by self-doubt. He is bored by team meetings and regularly wishes to take breaks from the team environment. He knows that he’s really good, and he disdains the men who possess ordinary records as players, especially if he dislikes them or if they have crossed his path. He can be extremely mean-spirited. He writes that Stuart Broad is ‘not the sharpest tool in the box’. He calls Graeme Swann a ‘sad, sad, bastard’. About coach Andy Flower, he says, ‘Contagiously sour. Infectiously dour. He could walk into a room and suck all the joy out of it in five seconds.’

Through the book, Pietersen says that he speaks it like he sees it, that he doesn’t mince his words. A book, though, could have been given greater consideration than words spoken in anger. Pietersen, clearly, hasn’t forgiven his teammates and the England cricket officials for his real or imaginary sufferings at their hands. He admits to several errors of judgments through the book. He is widely thought of as a mercenary, who quit his native South Africa to be able to play at the highest level for England, who then chose to put the IPL over England. He admits that he was wrong to not respect ‘South Africa and what the country gave me in terms of living there for 19 happy years’. ‘I should never have judged and nailed the political situation in South Africa just because the quota system didn’t work for me. I didn’t understand enough.’

He also admits to trying to be too English, trying to live down his South African identity, getting tattooed with the three lions, the symbol of English cricket. Does he continue to make mistakes like all of us? Well, after the mistakes of his early days, there are no major ones that he admits to during his time with England.

You’d want to read exactly what messages he exchanged with the South African players in the ‘Textgate’ row, which led to much trouble for Pietersen. In other instances, he has reproduced mails or text messages, but the intriguing messages in which he apparently insulted his captain, Andrew Strauss, are conspicuously absent from the book. We do want to know whether it just one word that was used was offensive, or was it much more than that?

When it comes to the Indian Premier League, Pietersen is possibly the most ardent supporter of the tournament, more faithful than Lalit Modi himself. But exactly what is so great about the tournament? ‘I love playing in India. I cherish the friendships, the atmosphere, the colour and the drama of IPL cricket. I love the ambition of the whole thing,’ writes Pietersen, before delivering the clincher, ‘I don’t think there’s anyone on this earth who would turn down the opportunity to earn that sort of money in the space of six weeks.’

Giving details about a discussion with Strauss, Pietersen observes, ‘He told me that I should continue with the IPL, but that I must always make sure that England was my number one. If he had said ‘Jesus’ instead of ‘England’, he couldn’t have sounded any more like a reverend.’ That’s quite funny! It’s clear that despite all his attempts at becoming more ‘English’, Pietersen hasn’t got it about cricket and England. The IPL challenges the long-form cricket, and the money on offer makes players put club over country. This seems to have happened with him. He complains of having to play too much cricket and then scoots off to play the IPL in the scorching Indian summer, and then he actually wants to take a break from time with England’s national team.

Pietersen dismisses criticism of this attitude as ‘jealousy and resentment’. He is living in a state of victimhood and denial. Despite this book, the contents of which would make the eyes of any England cricket official burn, he hopes to play for England again. This is both amazing and sad.

In this book, Pietersen has admitted to making several errors of judgment in the past. Has he made more errors — perhaps regarding this notion of being victimised? Maybe another book, at a later stage in his life, will disclose that.